Nightmare
by The Queen of Mean
Summary: There are some things in life no one can ever plan for...Not even the Joker.
1. Expecting the Unexpected

Brightly colored, mismatched socks shuffled quietly along white carpet from beneath the overly long legs of gray pajama pants as a tousle-haired Joker made his way out of his bedroom, his eyes shut against the early morning sunlight. The house was still quiet, which left him to wonder foggily if perhaps he was the only one home. It certainly seemed that way since upon turning over in bed just moments ago, he had noticed that the place where his 'domestic hostage' usually slept was empty, which was rather odd in itself, seeing how he almost always got up before she did...At least, this had been the case up until about a week ag-

WHAM

A loud groan of surprise and pain escaped Joker as the full front half of his body collided heavily with the apparently closed and locked bathroom door. Forcing his eyes open and cringing sourly, he brought up a hand to rub his twinging forehead, scowling heavily at the perceptibly solid door before him.

"Seriously?" he called raspily to the inside of the bathroom, using the bottom of one socked foot to massage his opposite, now aching big toe. "_Again?" _There was a pause from the other side of the door, before a shaky, familiar female voice answered.

"Can you go get Dotcom?" Jayde called, her voice trembling slightly with what Joker recognized unmistakably as tears. Without another word, he turned from the door to trudge out into the living room, rolling his eyes as he went. Five days ago, when Jayde had first gone dashing from the bedroom at seven o'clock in the morning, Joker's curiosity had gotten the better of him and caused him to rise from the bed to follow her, only to watch blankly from the door as she vomited spectacularly into the shower. At the time, it had been all too tempting to just walk away, go crawl back into the bed and double his pillow over his head to block out the sounds of retching. But instead, he had sat in the bathroom with her, making smartass remarks but generally being as helpful as he knew how to be. However, a week later, after this same event had occurred not just once but five times, he found his patience running a bit dry; there was only so many times a guy could wake up to the sound of puking before it got old.

Joker's first connected with the bedroom door in a series of loud bangs that echoed through the rest of the house, just moments before a groggy male voice answered, "Is it Jayde?"

Crossing his arms over his bare chest, Joker leaned sideways against the outside frame of Tre's old bedroom, rolling his itchy eyes upward to the ceiling as he replied.

"Yeah, she's puking her guts out again and asked me to get you," he explained, turning his head as the bedroom door finally opened with such force that some of his wavy, messy green hair blew onto his face. Dotcom was hastily pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose and pulling a jacket on over a t-shirt, meanwhile casting Joker a very dark and disdainful look as he passed.

"_You _should be the one doing this," he grumbled as he walked away, leaving Joker to scowl heavily at his retreating back.

"_You should be the one doing this," _Joker then mocked him under his breath in a high-pitched voice as he turned into the 'guest' bedroom to use the vomit-free bathroom.

Jayde looked up from her place sitting on the floor in front of the toilet when a softer, gentler knock sounded against the other side of the bathroom door, and a sigh of relief escaped her when she realized it must have been Dotcom; Joker would never knock on the door that way. Pushing herself onto her knees, she shimmied awkwardly across the tile floor to reach out and turn the knob, allowing her best friend into the bathroom with her. He let out a soft tsk-ing sound as he immediately knelt down to hold the back of his hand against her forehead.

"Oh, honey, I'm so sorry," he crooned sympathetically, shaking his head as he turned to sit lightly on the edge of the tub. With a quiet, weary laugh, Jayde shrugged.

"No, _I'm _sorry," she answered, folding her arms across her middle as she leaned back against the counter beneath the sink to sit opposite him and look up at his sleepy eyes. "I invited you out here so we could hang out, and then I get sick!"

Dotcom's red curls bounced slightly as he shook his head fervently. "Oh, don't be sorry, you can't control that," he answered dismissively with a wave of his hand. "I wanted to come out here anyway, I was just _dying _to see your..._husband..._"

Jayde rolled her eyes. Ever since Dotcom's arrival two days prior, he had been relentless about the recent addition of her ring tattoo, and the simple silver band Joker had given her to cover it in public. Over a month had passed since Joker had swallowed his pride and 'proposed' to her in what could have been considered the most blatant deviation from his true nature possible, but Dotcom had only just made it out to visit; to him, it might have only just happened. Of course, he had spared a squeal on the phone when Jayde had called to tell him about the unexpected twist in Jayde and Joker's relationship, however, seeing the tattoo and ring in person seemed to have finally made it real in his mind. At the moment, he was focused on the situation at hand.

"But, what confuses me is that you don't feel like you're running fever," he went on, his eyebrows furrowing behind his black rectangular-framed glasses. "Your throat doesn't hurt, you can eat fine...I dunno, I still think you should go see a doctor, Jayde."

At this, Jayde shook her head adamantly, taking a deep, shaky breath as another wave of nausea overwhelmed her.

"No...no, I can't...What if-...they see who I am and...I don't have insur-" Jayde's words came tumbling out at random, spurted intervals as she struggled to make it quickly toward the toilet, just before she gagged loudly.

From the carved, kitchen table, Joker's jaw paused mid-chew as the loud, echoing sound of sickness reached his ears from beyond his newspaper and his eyes followed the path of the noise, over toward the hallway, where he could just see the back half of his 'wife', hunched over the toilet. His eyes rolled as he pushed his half-eaten slice of toast away from him.

"Tryin' to _EAT _out here!"

Dotcom groaned in annoyance as Joker's loud voice carried into the bathroom, causing him to rise from his place rubbing Jayde's back, to the door to shut it, before taking a washcloth from the rack to run it under the water. Over at the toilet, Jayde let out a weak laugh as she sat back, reaching out to take the damp towel from Dotcom.

"He's been _such _a sweetheart about this whole thing," she grumbled sarcastically, shaking her head as Dotcom's lips pursed. It was quite apparent from his silence that he felt very strongly about Joker's lack of helpfulness, but was too kind to Jayde to say what he truly thought. Instead, he went back to their previous discussion.

"I still think you ought to go to a doctor," he repeated, but when Jayde opened her mouth with every intention of protesting, Dotcom went on hastily. "Ask Joker if he knows somewhere you could go, like a walk-in clinic or something! Somewhere they don't ask too many questions," he offered, reaching out to flush the toilet as Jayde stood up slowly. When her eyes moved to meet his, he smiled sweetly, reaching out to pat her arm. "He may not want to hold your hair while you barf, but you can bet money he doesn't want to see you arrested either. He'll find you a good place to go."

Despite the fact that Jayde had to agree with Dotcom, the idea of going to the doctor still unnerved her slightly. It just seemed so likely that if she gave them her real name when asked for it, they would somehow figure out that she was wanted by not only the police, but by the FBI, as a suspect in the murder of a Gotham City detective. But she also figured Joker was just as ready for her to stop throwing up every morning as she was, so the odds were good that he would be willing to help find her a good, nondescript doctor's office.

Once she had changed into fresh clothes and brushed her teeth, Jayde met Dotcom in the kitchen, where Joker had just finished his breakfast and was now leaned back comfortably in his favorite chair, lazily reading the paper as though nothing even slightly beyond the ordinary had occurred that morning. He seemed perfectly relaxed and at ease as she approached him, and he looked up, glancing her up and down as she stepped over to press a light kiss on his cheek.

"Morning, barf breath," he greeted her just as her lips brushed his skin, in a gentle voice that suggested he had just addressed her by the most romantic pet name possible. Jayde breathed a heavy sigh of annoyance as she rose to walk away, but paused as Joker reached out suddenly and wrapped his arm around her waist gently, pulling her back toward him. Confused, she glanced down, though only for her face to morph into a frown when Joker lifted one finger and gingerly poked the front of her tummy. He shook his head with a low whistle once he was satisfied that Jayde was not going to be sick on him once he pulled her down onto his lap. "I'm surprised you're not completely hollow by now," he commented in a clowny growl, glancing up at the side of her face as Jayde finally broke a grin and turned sideways on his lap at the table.

"I am too," she answered. "Though I have to say, it was _really _sweet of you to offer to help me this morning, dear..." she then added sarcastically, that small grin fading into a very flat, annoyed expression, to which Joker appeared to take offense. His eyebrows arched sharply as he scowled up at her, though just as he opened his mouth to give what was likely a very rude reply, Dotcom spoke from where he had just poured himself a cup of black coffee and Jayde a glass of ice water.

"Boss, I'm thinking Jayde should go see a doctor today, what do you think?" he asked, walking over to set the water down in front of Jayde. "I mean, that's just my opinion...she's _your _wife..."

At this last word, both Jayde and Joker looked quickly over at Dotcom, who was now hiding a smile poorly; it could not have been plainer that he had been simply dying to use this word to Joker in reference to Jayde. However, to everyone's surprise, Joker seemed to either take this comment in stride or otherwise ignored it, and instead, he turned his head to look up at Jayde with a furrowed brow.

"Do you feel like you need to go see a doctor, woman?" he asked, tightening his arm's grip around her hips slightly and lacing his voice with more care and concern than Jayde knew he truly felt. Staring back down at his chocolate brown eyes, Jayde watched as his gaze bounced back and forth between hers several times, awaiting her answer. Eventually, she shrugged, tearing her eyes away to glance over at Dotcom.

"I honestly don't want to, but I also really don't want to keep throwing up every day so...I'm guessing I probably should..." she finally conceded, sighing as she turned her gaze back to Joker, who nodded once with finality.

"I agree," he stated, just before rising from the table from beneath Jayde so abruptly that she stumbled slightly upon landing on her feet. Frowning, she turned to Joker and was about to cuss at him, but instead jumped slightly as he placed two hands on either side of her face and squeezed, puckering her lips to ridiculous proportions. "'Cause Lord knows I don't want my sugar titties feeling all sick and yucky everyday, right?" he asked in a highly contradictory, gravely and deep 'baby voice', giving her head a small shake before he let go and walked away toward his bedroom. "I got a place you can go," he then added over his shoulder, just before he disappeared around the corner. Jayde glanced over at Dotcom, who raised his eyebrows with a shrug of his shoulders.

"See?"

Within a few moments, Joker returned, holding a very familiar, small black notebook, which he held clamped between his teeth while he pulled a plain white t-shirt on over his head.

"If they haven't closed it, you should go to the free-clinic on Aimes street," he said once he had slid his arms into the sleeves of his shirt and removed the notebook from his teeth to flip it open and begin scrolling through it. From where she sat on a chair at the table, Jayde watched Joker's face as his eyes scanned each page with dizzying rapidity. "-Had to take Tre there once when he had food poisoning...dumbass thought he was _dying..._...Alright, here, this is the place," he finally stopped on a certain page, tapping his pointer finger over a few scribbled words and numbers. "They'll ask you for a name but you can give a fake one and they wont know any different." Joker explained, but paused and let out a short snort of laughter. "I told 'em my name was Jack Meoff."

From across the kitchen, Dotcom gave a loud scoff of indignation but Jayde had barely heard what Joker said. Looking straight up at him, she reached out, threading her fingers between his larger ones, attempting to put a slightly pathetic, hopeful expression on her face as Joker turned his head to meet her eyes.

"Will you come with me?" she asked, purposely making her voice a bit more pleading than it normally would have sounded. She _really _did not like doctor's offices, and although Joker was not known for his stellar behavior in quiet, public places, she felt that having him with her might act as either a source of comfort or a distraction. However, as Joker hissed a deep breath in through his teeth with a highly false, remorseful expression on his face, Jayde released his hand and turned her gaze solemnly to the notebook on the table before her.

"You knowI'd _love_ to go, but I've got a few things to take care of today downtown," he answered, poking out his scarred bottom lip slightly. "_Buuuut..._I should be here when you get back, so you'll be able to tell me _all _about it!" he added enthusiastically a moment later, raising his eyebrows and grinning down at Jayde as though this would put an end to her disappointment.

An hour later, Jayde was dressed for her doctor appointment, and was now sitting cross-legged on the edge of the bed, watching idly as Joker stood over by his tall chest of drawers, pulling out a white, Oxford business shirt to go with the black, pinstriped pants he had already applied. He had thus far been unable to find a hexagon-patterned blue shirt to replace the one he had abandoned in Gotham and was _still _upset about it. He let out a low hissing sound as he slid his long arms into the sleeves, shaking his head gravely.

"I _still _can't believe I sacrificed my purple suit on that dead guy," he commented to seemingly no one in particular, now facing the long body mirror as he buttoned the shirt. "Talk about a waste..." A heavy silence fell over the room as Jayde stared blankly at a random portion of the white shirt, and from her lack of response, Joker glanced over at her, arching an eyebrow. A moment later, a shrill whistle escaped through his teeth and he snapped his fingers a few times in front of her face, causing Jayde to jump and blink heavily, having been caught in the middle of a staring contest with nothing. "Earth to Jayde? Do you copy?" he asked rather loudly, bending slightly to the side so he could put himself into her line of vision. With a quiet laugh, Jayde nodded, readjusting her arms to fold them more tightly across her stomach.

"Yeah, I was listening, I just-..." Here, she paused, shrugging vaguely as she once again allowed her eyes to drift off, away from where Joker was now focused on tying a plain black tie about his neck. "Joker, what if something is seriously wrong with me?" Finally, she allowed this question to spill forth unhindered, and although she had been struggling hard not to voice her concern to him, she felt as though the uncertainty was eating her alive. And as was typically the case, she felt better once she had allowed herself to actually ask this aloud. However, when she finally brought her eyes back up to meet the side of Joker's face, where he stood before the mirror, she noticed his eyebrows had furrowed and the deep scars on either side of his mouth had tightened slightly in his frown. The newly tied knot of his tie had just reached it's usual loosened position just below his neck when he finally turned to face her, that scowl of slight confusion still evident among his features.

"Just what do you think you're gonna hear at the doctors?" he asked, tilting his head to the side slightly, cocking one eyebrow sharply. "That you have some horrible, rare, painful disease to which there's no known cure?" his question continued, before he paused, though just as Jayde opened her mouth to reply that _yes, _that was exactly what she was afraid of, Joker suddenly took a step toward her, leaning down to place both hands on the edge of the bed on either side of her legs. With his face now inches from her own, Jayde watched in slight apprehension as his dark gaze once again bounced back and forth between her eyes. "'Cause I hate to tell you this, but you've already _got _an incurable disease...and it's called _me," _he went on, his perfectly scarred lips tightening slightly across his teeth when he smirked. "The doc can't give you no worse news than that." And with that, he left her with one quick kiss before he stalked from the bedroom, leaving Jayde smiling, but a little less than reassured.

Once Joker had promised that he would be home either before or shortly after they returned, and once he had supplied Jayde with enough money to cover the office visit plus any tests that needed to be run, he disappeared out into the garage, then into the large black Escalade, leaving Jayde and Dotcom alone with the keys to Tre's old truck.

Pulling away from the corner of Lincoln and Platt, Joker reluctantly glanced into the rear view mirror of the huge SUV to where the house was now gradually growing smaller, and against his wishes, his mind took him back just a few minutes to his bedroom where Jayde had been sitting on the bed, looking up at him with clear dread in her eyes. While at the time, it seemed perfectly in her nature to be so concerned about nothing more than a simple doctor's visit, now that Joker was alone and able to let his mind wander freely, he wondered if maybe her fears were justified. Of course, he had been infinitely careful not to make this evident in any way, shape or form, but if he admitted it fairly to himself, he was perhaps feeling just as uneasy about it as she was. Her symptoms just seemed to appear so suddenly and so sporadically that it begged the thought that a mere diagnosis of the flu was a bit out of the question. Since meeting her two years prior, Jayde had been as healthy as possible, always ready to help, always able to perform whatever task had been asked of her, and up until a week ago, she had seemed perfectly normal. But now, she was sick daily and while Joker tried to make light of the situation by calling her rude names like 'barf breath', he could not help but feel rather unnerved.

Just for the sake of argument, Joker allowed his mind to wander into the realm of hypothetical thought, wondering what his real reaction would be to hearing the news that Jayde had _actually _been diagnosed with an incurable, terminal disease. Losing Tre had been immeasurably difficult for him to deal with, but he had not known that death was coming. The explosion and ultimately, the demise of his best friend had been completely unplanned and totally unpredicted. How much worse or easier would it be for him if both he and Jayde _knew _that her death was coming? How much more difficult would it be to watch her slowly diminish until her illness took her away from him, to where he could not see or touch her anymore?

"Holy _shit," _Joker actually swore aloud to the emptiness of the vehicle as he swallowed hard on the lump that had formed in his throat at just the thought of such a fate. A very small part of him felt the urge to turn the Escalade around right then and head back to the house, hopefully catch Dotcom and Jayde before they left so he could take her to the clinic himself. But the larger, more rational portion of Joker's being finally kicked back in. No, Jayde was going to be just fine. She probably only had a strong, intermittent bout of the flu or something equally as innocuous. So Joker kept his eyes on the road and his hands on the steering wheel, though that very small part of him managed to squeeze in one last thought. _But what if she's not ok?_

Just as Jayde had verbally predicted in the car on the ride to Aimes street, the slightly dingy waiting room of the walk-in clinic was absolutely packed to capacity with sick or injured people, seemingly all without insurance and seemingly all waiting to be seen. As she and Dotcom stepped into the reception area, she hesitated, reaching out to hook her hand around his arm, holding him back as her eyes scanned the room uncertainly.

"No, look..." she began, her voice lowered as she watched an elderly man blow his nose loudly into a very small, tattered bit of tissue. "It's so busy, we'll probably end up waiting for hours. Let's just come back tomor-"

"What so we can have you spend another whole morning miserable?" Dotcom asked, his voice equally low as he glanced about them. "No, we're already here. Let's just check in and ask what the wait time is." When Jayde did not move, but continued to stare up at him anxiously, he rolled his eyes from behind his glasses. "If the wait is over two hours, we'll leave and come back tomorrow, deal?"

Since Jayde felt this was perfectly fair, she finally nodded and allowed him to lead her toward the front of the crowded room, to where a harried-looking young woman was seated behind a desk and a large pane of glass. Upon reaching the counter, the woman looked up at Dotcom and Jayde, forcing onto her face what was clearly a very strained smile.

"Hi, can I help you?" she asked politely as she slid the glass window to the side, glancing from Jayde, to Dotcom and back again. Jayde tried not to notice the way her eyes lingered an extra moment on the thin scar along her left cheek. Dotcom answered, motioning to Jayde beside him.

"Yeah, she's been sick and...we don't have insurance so we were hoping to-..." His voice broke off, obviously in an effort to prevent himself from saying too much, but it seemed the young receptionist had either heard this story many times, or was just too overworked to care.

"Oh, ok, not a problem," she replied lightly, glancing down at her desk to where a white clipboard was sitting, holding a few sheets of paper. "Just fill this out and bring it back up here. It should only be about a half hour before you can be seen." At this, both Jayde and Dotcom gave clear looks of surprise at the somewhat minimal wait time, which left the receptionist to lean forward slightly toward them and motion with her eyes to the remainder of the waiting room.

"They all have insurance and wont be paying out of pocket today," she informed them quietly. "Dr. Marcelli likes to see the co-pay patients directly."

Feeling marginally more comfortable with the fact that she would not have to wait until after dark to see the doctor, Jayde followed Dotcom over to the only two remaining empty chairs, where she sat down, uncapped the pen and let her eyes fall to the first line.

'Name, _please print._

Last:

First:

Middle Initial:'

Leaning to the side slightly, Jayde glanced over at Dotcom, who had just picked up the latest copy of _People _magazine, where a shirtless picture of Channing Tatum had made its debut.

"Dotcom, what's my name?" she asked in a voice barely above a whisper. Beside her, he shrugged.

"Just pick a random first name and use my last," he answered nonchalantly. However, when Jayde continued to stare at him blankly, he glanced up, before rolling his eyes heavily. "Your name is Sarah M. Flannery."

Several minutes later, once all of the paperwork had been completed and Jayde had included details on her sickness, noting specifically how the vomiting and nausea had literally been her _only _symptoms and how they seemed to only appear when she woke up, she walked back to the front desk, where she handed the clipboard to the receptionist. She was then told to have a seat again and that her name would be called soon, so she returned to the chair beside Dotcom, who was now flicking his way through a _Better Homes and Gardens _magazine. She leaned toward him, rubbing her now sweating palms heavily on the legs of her jeans.

"I really feel fine now," she whispered, glancing over at the back door, where she would be seeing the doctor any minute. "I mean, I think this morning might have been the last of it. I'm probably over it now, so we should just-"

"No," Dotcom cut in, using both hands to shut the magazine abruptly. "You said that last night too and you were sick all morning again. We are _not _leaving until you see the doctor and find out what's wrong...Besides-" Here, Jayde frowned as Dotcom cast her a quick sideways glance that read plainly of uncertainty. "I don't think you'll be getting over this for a while." The unmistakable note in his voice of knowing something she didn't was not at all helpful to Jayde's state of open anxiety. Her eyebrows furrowed as she leaned even closer to him.

"What's _that _supposed to mean? Dotcom, what do you mean?" she asked in a voice of poorly suppressed panic, but just as he closed his eyes to shake his head adamantly, both glanced up when the back door to the waiting room opened and...

'Sarah Flannery?'

Several minutes later, after being led through a somewhat dimly lit, brick-walled hallway and after Jayde's baseline vitals had been taken, such as blood pressure and temperature, both she and Dotcom found themselves in yet another waiting room, though this one was _much _smaller and completely white, containing one straight-backed wooden chair and one cushioned exam table. Jayde sat down on the exam table, feeling thoroughly uncomfortable as a nurse stepped into the room with them, and to her horror, pulled a plastic cup from the pocket of her lab coat.

"Well, your vitals seem fine and you aren't running any fever, so we'd like to just get a small urine sample from you, just to run a few routine tests, to rule out a few possibilities before the doctor comes in," the woman explained, handing Jayde the cup and lid. "Just leave the cup in the bathroom once you're done and I'll come get it."

As the door closed behind the stout nurse, Jayde turned to Dotcom, who was now struggling not to grin. He shook his head, folding his arms across his chest as he crossed one leg over his knee daintily.

"Oh, stop being a baby," he scolded once he had seen the panicked look on Jayde's face. "It's not like they're going to run your pee for DNA. Just go piss in the cup and we'll get to leave soon." With a heavy sigh, Jayde left the small exam room, to venture down the hall, where she found a bathroom and slipped inside.

If peeing into a plastic cup was not awkward enough as it was, screwing the lid on, then leaving the entire cup on the edge of the sink for some stranger to pick it up was just about as unusual as it got. But Jayde figured that if doing this would help them figure out just what it was that was making her so sick every day, she was more than willing to do it, and before long, she was right back in that tiny exam room, studying her fingernails and trying not to faint under the weight of her brain flying through all the possibilities.

"_You have leukemia..."_

_ "You have cancer..."_

_ "You have Lou Gehrig's disease..."_

Jayde supposed it was a little paranoid for her to assume that any of these terminal illnesses could be diagnosed from just a simple urine test, but just the thought of the doctor coming into the room and telling her that he could not figure out the problem and that she needed to see a specialist was enough to make her cry right where she sat. What would Joker say? Would he just make a smartass comment like usual and pretend nothing had changed? Would he just up and leave her to fend for herse-

Just then, as Jayde's brain finally pushed itself into overdrive, a gentle knock preceded the sound of the exam door opening, just before a tall, gray haired man wearing a white lab coat and stethoscope stepped into the room. A palpable sense of anxiety and nerves accompanied him as both Jayde and Dotcom sat up straighter on their seats. The doctor glanced from one to the other and back again as he smiled and introduced himself.

"I'm Dr. Marcelli, and..." he paused, glancing back down at the file and slip of paper in his hand. "Well, it seems I've got some interesting news for you."

As Joker stepped into a completely empty house, he sighed, dropping his keys onto the carved wooden table before shrugging out of his gray vest. The time had already reached four o'clock in the afternoon, which left him surprised that he had not only managed to take that much time 'running errands' but also that Jayde and Dotcom had seemingly spent that much time at the doctor's office. That annoying knot of anxiety gave a small twinge in the pit of his stomach but Joker ignored it and instead walked over to the fridge, where a glass of orange juice was calling his name. Vaguely, he wondered how much longer Jayde would be and whether he would have enough time to shower-

The sound of the garage door sliding up on it's tracks caused Joker to turn from the cabinet of glasses, where he had just been about to pull one down. That knot in the pit of his stomach intensified slightly but this time, he really swallowed hard, knowing it would not do him any good to appear too eager or anxious over hearing the outcome of Jayde's visit to the doctor. However, just a moment later, the garage door opened into the kitchen, revealing Dotcom first, followed closely by a slightly red-eyed, seemingly weary Jayde, who was clutching two pieces of paper in her hand. At first, Joker foolishly wondered if perhaps she had once again gotten sick on the ride home, but then with a jolt, he suddenly recognized that expression and appearance as the one she adopted when she had recently been crying. That knot expanded into full blown fistfuls of nerves; his expression did not indicate this as he smiled.

"So you're still alive, I see," he commented somewhat snidely, smirking as Dotcom cast him a subtle dark look, from where he was pulling out a chair for Jayde at the table. Neither of them replied at first, but after a few moments, Dotcom spoke.

"I'm gonna go for a ride downtown," he said quietly to Jayde, causing Joker's smirk to fade slightly. Why did his voice sound as though he were speaking to a dying person? "I'll be back in a bit."

As Joker watched the garage door close once again behind Dotcom, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion, before he shook his head with a shrug of his shoulders, turning once again to the counter, to continue pouring himself that momentarily abandoned glass of orange juice. The silence in the kitchen was absolute, punctuated only momentarily by the sound of Jayde moving her hand to place those two pieces of paper next to her on the table. Gritting his teeth and unable to take her silence any longer, Joker steeled himself for speech by taking a long sip of his drink, before he turned to face her. He hesitated when he noticed her staring dazedly down at the carvings in the wood table before her.

"So...did they find out what's wrong with ya?" he asked in a somewhat nonchalant sort of voice, giving it everything in his power to appear like he hadn't been thinking about her situation all day. Across from him at the table, Jayde gave a small jump as though she had forgotten that he was even in the room and Joker's light expression dissolved slightly. A moment later, without nodding or shaking her head, nor giving any indication that he had asked her a question, she reached out one hand to pat the place at the table just next to her.

"Will you come sit down?" she asked quietly, her voice vaguely shaky with what Joker figured was the last remnants of her previous tears. With another confused arch of his eyebrows, he stepped toward the table, kicking out the chair next to her, to drop down into it and scoot forward once again. Resting his forearms on the table, he shrugged, leaning toward her.

"So...let me guess..." he began, smirking as Jayde's previously blank face became rapt with something that looked extremely like apprehension. "-you have cancer." he then finished, his smirk expanding wickedly.

Whatever small amount of expression had appeared on Jayde's face fell away rapidly into a very familiar look of flat annoyance, while Joker let out a laugh, leaning back in his chair. With her eyes now locked fully on his, Joker felt that fist of nerves in his stomach relax ever so slightly, just before she spoke.

"Joker, I'm pregnant."

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A/N: Please review and let me know what you thought! I have had more requests for this one-shot than anything else, so I finally decided to give it a shot. If you hate it now, fine. Just keep reading and trust me. If you love it, GREAT! Just keep reading and trust me- things are about to get a little rocky. Oh, and if you leave a review, please be discrete so nothing will be given away to those who read the reviews before the actual story! So with that being said...

LEAVE ME YOUR LOVE/HATE IF YOU WANT THE NEXT CHAPTER!


	2. Impossible

"_Joker, I'm pregnant."_

A faint, dull ringing seemed to fill the small kitchen immediately following Jayde's words. Joker blinked, giving a small shake of his head, thinking he had heard her wrong.

"Wait...what?" he asked, letting out a short laugh, and before Jayde could cut in, he went on with a dismissive roll of his eyes at her feeble joke. "Ok, I was kidding about the cancer thing. Seriously though, what did the doctor say is wrong with you?"

The silence swelled as Jayde stared back at him, her eyes now slightly wide when she must have realized that Joker simply thought she was messing with him. Nodding her head slowly, she leaned back in her chair, bringing her hands from atop the table to rest in her lap.

"I'm serious, Joker..." she murmured, her voice soft and somewhat delicate, her slightly reddened blue eyes focused fully on his. "I'm pregnant. The doctor said I'm-"

"Well, he's wrong," Joker cut in abruptly, shaking his head as he rose quickly from the table. "The test, or...whatever...it's wrong." A sudden burst of inspiration forced him to the kitchen sink, where he flipped on the water, held his hands out and brought some of the freezing cold liquid to his face, to rub vigorously. However, when he straightened up and turned off the water, to find that Jayde was _still _sitting there across the room from him, staring up at him expectantly, he sighed in disappointment _Not dreaming._

"Here," she said, once he had wiped his wet hands off on the legs of his black pants. Those two pieces of paper that she had brought into the house with her were now held in her hand, extended out for him to take. Despite himself, Joker walked over and snatched the papers from her, unfolding both of them to look down and read:

"_Urine and blood test confirms approximate 10 week pregnancy. Estimated due date: September 22, 2013."_

More words had appeared beneath these two seemingly simple sentences, but Joker found that he did not need to read more. With a flick of his hand, he tossed the two pieces of paper back onto the table. From the corner of his eye, he noticed Jayde flinch at his sudden movement but he ignored this and instead reached out for the set of car keys on the carved table.

"I'll be right back," he said, moving around the place where Jayde sat, toward the garage door, which he flung open, and was about halfway through it when he heard the wooden chair at the table scrape against the floor.

"Where are you going?" Jayde asked from behind him, clear panic laced into every syllable of her words. Pausing mid-step and gritting his teeth to prevent himself from yelling and therefore revealing that he was very close to the verge of panic himself, he turned slightly to face her, motioning with one thumb over his shoulder to where the Escalade sat in the garage beyond him.

"I'm _just _going to the store," he answered. "I'll be back in about five minutes."

True to his word, Joker was stepping right back into the house just a short five minutes later, unsurprised to find Jayde sitting exactly where he had left her, with one elbow rested on the table and her forehead braced with the heel of her hand. Again, he forewent a comment and instead walked straight over to the cabinets, opening one of them to reach in and pull out a small glass. Turning again to the kitchen table, he set down the bag he had brought back with him before handing the glass to Jayde. For just a moment, she hesitated, holding the glass in her hand, while she watched as Joker began pulling out box after box of what were now revealed to be home pregnancy tests, one of seemingly every brand and price range.

"Joker..." she began, her voice once again light and adopting that same cautious tone she used when she knew he was feeling particularly unpredictable. Joker swallowed hard, again forcibly attempting to keep himself calm for the time being.

"Go pee in that," he instructed, pointing with one finger from the glass to the distant hallway that led to the bathroom. However when Jayde once again remained still, some of that barely restrained urgency seeped out of him. "_Now" _he added in nothing short of a bark. With another jump, Jayde finally rose from the table and disappeared around the corner, into the bathroom before Joker heard the door shut and lock behind her.

Some of the kits he had randomly and blindly chosen included two test sticks, some only came with one, but regardless, Joker laid all twelve tests out on the table, knowing he would not be able to accept the truth until the round dozen all read positive. He had just finished uncapping the last one when Jayde returned, holding a now partially filled cup of her urine. Under normal circumstances, Joker would have spared a falsely disgusted look and a snide comment about how it was still warm or something equally as stupid, but at the moment, any sort of joke was far gone from his mind. Though as he glanced up to take the glass from her, his eyes just happened to flicker up toward her face, where he noticed that a few fresh tears had slipped past her eyelids and dark lashes. Withholding an annoyed groan, he rolled his eyes, pointing at the chair across from him.

"Stop crying and sit down," he told her firmly, watching momentarily as she obeyed and sunk heavily into the place he had indicated, where she folded her arms across her middle, to watch as Joker reached out and picked up the first test.

The process of dipping each stick into the urine before capping it again did not take nearly as long as Joker had hoped it would, and before he knew it, he was standing up again and rounding the edge of the table, glancing at the leather watch around his wrist as the first of the tests began to show a faint blue line. From what he had read on the boxes, each test supposedly used a different indication to dictate whether the result was either negative or positive, but as the first test he had dipped began to reveal a small blue plus sign on the screen, Joker quickly picked it up and dropped into the trashcan. He did not need to double check the box to know what the plus sign meant.

And one by one, each of the tests began unveiling their results, some bearing a plus sign, others giving two lines, some even going so far as to spell the word 'pregnant' in small blue letters. While Joker knew it was in his personality to not believe anything until he saw it and proved it for himself, he began to wonder, as he threw each conclusive test in the trashcan, whether it had really been a good idea to test this himself. Each positive was making him feel physically ill with anger and as the last of the tests finished processing, by displaying a small smiley face on the screen, that poorly restrained emotion bubbled out of him.

Jayde jumped with a soft gasp as that last test met the wall across the table with near explosive force and broke into several pieces of plastic, as Joker turned away, reaching up one flustered hand to run it through the front of his messy green hair.

"How did this happen?" he asked a moment later, his voice surprisingly quiet but rather dangerous as he looked back to Jayde. To Joker's immediate surprise, a small, rather sheepish smile appeared on Jayde's face, as she turned on her chair to face him and fleetingly, he wondered if she had mistaken his throwing the test at the wall as an expression of his happiness.

"_Well..._when a man and a woman have sex-..." she began somewhat sassily, but Joker cut in, taking a step toward her and holding up one threatening finger in her direction.

"Don't be smart with me right now, Jayde," he warned her, his voice raising slightly. Her smile vanished with record timing. "I _meant, _how did you get like..._this, _when I'm physically incapable of reproducing?" Joker's head cocked to the side and his eyebrows raised, as he waited impatiently for an answer that Jayde seemed unable to give. She shook her own head with a vague shrug of her shoulders.

"What do you-...I don't underst-" she stammered awkwardly, but again, Joker interrupted, tossing his arms.

"I'm shooting blanks!" he nearly yelled, watching as Jayde's expression suddenly went from rather confused to a frown. "I had a vasectomy a _long _time ago so _this _would NOT happen!"

"Joker, I don't-..." Once again, Jayde tried to cut in, but he spoke over her.

"So what I would _like to know..._" he continued, his voice now back at a very low level, but practically pulsating with anger. "-is how you got _knocked up_."

Joker was not sure if perhaps his choice of the words 'knocked up' had triggered something, but as Jayde suddenly stood up from her chair, a now equally dangerous expression on her face, he had to fight the temptation to take a step back from her; he had not yet forgotten how his missing back tooth had come to be missing. With her sharp eyebrows arched so severely that they formed a wrinkle between them, Jayde held up a hand to her chest, indicating herself.

"Are you accusing me...of _cheating?" _she asked in a highly incredulous, rather harsh tone of voice. When Joker simply tossed his hands with a shrug, she repeated herself, this time putting emphasis on certain words. "_You _are accusing _me _of cheating?"

Ignoring her connotation, Joker shrugged again.

"Do the math, Jayde," he began. "I can't reproduce and yet here you are, telling me...showing me that you're..." Here, his voice failed him. He could not yet bring himself to say the word-

"PREGNANT!" She finished for him, suddenly reaching the top of her voice. "I'm PREGNANT with YOUR BABY and your first _rational _thought is to accuse me of screwing around on you?!" It seemed the height of her volume was just enough to push Joker to match her.

"YEAH! IT IS!" he shouted in return, taking a half-step toward her. Unnervingly, Jayde did not back away from him. "How can I be responsible for _that_ when I'm not even physically CAPABLE of it?!" he added, pointing one finger at the front of her body.

"Joker, how could I have cheated? When do you think I could have done that?!" she asked, matching him and advancing toward him yet another half step so that they were within two feet of each other, shouting in each others faces. "Do you have ANY idea how hard it is to hide something from you? Even something small?!"

Across from her, Joker hissed in incredulity, rolling his eyes. "Oh, spare me the bullshit, Jayde. I'm not here every waking minute of every day and neither are you! There are plenty of times you could have done this-" Just as Joker had been speaking, Jayde walked away with a shake of her head, around the corner and into the living room, and he followed her, watching as she snatched up a random item of clothing on the couch and prepared to disappear into the bedroom. But with the sense of drowning in a shallow pond, of fighting a lost battle creeping up on him, Joker took a deep breath and shouted at her back.

"SO JUST WHO WAS THE LAST GUY YOU _FUCKED _IN MY BED, HUH?!"

That horrible, ringing silence from earlier immediately swelled as the last echoes of Joker's loud voice dissipated through the room, and across from him, Jayde stopped cold in her tracks, and turned, dropping that random shirt back onto the couch as she began to walk slowly toward him. Rebelliously, Joker watched her approach, feeling a very slim sense of pride start to fill him at finally having the last word. But as Jayde grew to within a foot of him, looking straight up at him, he had only a split second to take half of a deep breath before she suddenly swung out and slapped him across the face with such force, Joker actually felt his neck pop. He groaned from between gritted teeth and behind a wavy curtain of green hair as small, twinkling lights burst momentarily in his vision.

"_God, _I _hate_ it when you do that..." he hissed quietly, his left eye squinted and stinging as Jayde glared up at him with more hatred than he had ever seen in her face before. Ignoring this comment, she instead answered his question from just moments ago.

"The last guy I fucked in _our _bed was you," she said, her voice very low and calm despite the fact that she was shaking so hard, Joker could now see the tips of her hair trembling. "The _only _guy I've EVER _fucked _is you." Here, she paused, her hate-filled eyes scanning across Joker's face as he stared down at her defiantly. A moment later, she went on, shaking her head slowly. "How you could even entertain the idea of me being unfaithful to you is completely beyond me right now-..." Her voice was once again raising in volume at an alarmingly fast rate but despite this, Joker held his ground. "-When I've been NOTHING but good to you. Do you really think I'm STUPID enough to cheat on you?!" He took a stumbled half-step backward as Jayde suddenly shoved him as hard as she could using her hands against his chest, but as the distance was momentarily increased between them, she closed in again, glaring up at him. However, just as Jayde's mouth had opened again, to go on, miraculously, as though he knew to save Joker from the instinctual reaction of finally boiling over and hitting Jayde as hard as he possibly could, the garage door across from them swung open and Dotcom entered the room, though he hesitated as soon as he looked over and saw where they were standing.

"Oh..." he muttered, half-backing out into the garage again. "Sorry...I'll just go..."

"No, stay," Joker told him abruptly, moving away from Jayde and back over toward the table where the keys to the Escalade lay abandoned in the midst of all the opened and emptied pregnancy test boxes. "I'm going. I just need to-..." Joker began to try and explain what it was he needed to do, but his mind was still spinning, reeling from the past half hour and he found himself perfectly incapable of forming a sentence or even a thought to completion. "I'll be back later." Without another word, nor a glance back over his shoulder at Jayde, Joker moved past Dotcom to the garage door and disappeared beyond it, allowing the wood to collide with the frame heavily behind him.

As the roar of the Corvette's powerful engine filled the garage beyond the tense confines of the house, both Dotcom and Jayde stood perfectly still, listening to the gradually weakening sound of the engine as Joker backed the car out. The noise became more and more faint until it dissipated completely, and the two of them were left perfectly alone, Dotcom staring at Jayde with widened, apprehensive eyes, while across from him, Jayde was simply left gazing listlessly, wearily at the wall, where just moments ago, Joker had been standing. With a soft 'tsk' of his tongue against the back of his teeth, Dotcom walked toward her.

"Oh, honey..." he murmured quietly, holding out his arms to wrap around her shoulders. And this was seemingly all she had been waiting for, _all day. _Just some sort of comfort, some gentle touch to assure her that everything would be fine, that she would get through this...that she would not have to do this alone.

A loud, sob escaped Jayde as her knees finally buckled beneath the weight of her situation and the heart wrenching things Joker had just accused her of, and together, she and Dotcom sank onto the couch, his arms wrapped around her as she wept openly into the collar of his shirt.

The sun had set on Chicago, leaving the streets darkened and rather empty for a Tuesday night, but the Joker might as well have been driving with a blindfold on for all the notice he took of where he was going. He had already passed Tiny and D-boy's house without even a second thought of stopping there, and was now moving steadily into the innermost avenues of the city, hoping to put as much distance as possible between himself and the house at the corner of Lincoln and Platt. The place where Jayde's hand had connected with his cheek still stung and ached, making him feel, if possible, even more angry that he had been unable to have the last word of their argument. It was true, the two of them had argued before in the past, but never to the degree they had reached that night, just the residual sound of their shouting in the back of his mind filled him with an intense desire to mow through the crowd of people passing in front of the Corvette along the crosswalk. Though as tempting as this seemed, he knew it would do him absolutely no good to land himself in a heap of trouble with the law at this time...but then again...being in prison would mean that he was relieved of any sort of duty to Jayde and the _thing _she was apparently carrying inside of her...

This thought brought Joker's fist to the dashboard of the car as he slammed it there, a rough growl of anger escaping him from between gritted teeth. He had made a perfectly valid point back at the house! How could he be responsible for Jayde's situation when it was not even possible for him to reproduce? He had been nineteen years old when he made the decision to have a vasectomy and not for even a moment during the intervening years had he regretted this. He _knew _he was not the type that ought to be reproducing and he was absolutely positive that there was _a lot _of people who would agree with him on that. And yet, now here he sat, fuming, at a red light, struggling to comprehend how Jayde, the one and only girl he had ever entrusted to love him and be loved by him, was claiming to be pregnant with _his _child. _It just couldn't be mine..._he thought desperately.

But as was Joker's typical response to something he could not comprehend, he felt the need to prove it, figure it out for himself and if he could not do this alone, he would go straight to the source, straight to the person who, _he _felt, was truly to blame for his situation. As the light switched to green, Joker immediately turned left, his mind now on a new and hopefully more helpful destination.

The streets in this particular part of the city were practically squished between the tall buildings. Hardly anyone dared to park directly on them, and instead typically confined their cars to one of the numerous, multilevel parking garages available between the buildings. But of course, at the moment, Joker could barely spare a single thought on anything besides his current dilemma and hastily, he parked the Corvette right on the street in front of a huge, eight story building, pausing only momentarily to pat the inside pocket of his vest before he got out. Unless he got the answers he was looking for, he would not need to bring a gun; a single knife would suffice, just as it always did.

Despite the fact that the time was already approaching seven o'clock in the evening, Joker met no resistance at the doors to the building, which meant, hopefully, that the staff was still present and that he would not get all the way upstairs only to meet a crew of Mexican cleaning women. The lobby was sparkling clean but miraculously empty, which once again gave Joker a quick and easy path over to the elevators, where he stood glaring up at the lighted circles overhead and pounding his gloved finger relentlessly against the 'up' button. Within moments, the elevator car arrived, the doors opened and Joker rushed in, only to turn to the wall of buttons, where he hastily selected the small dim circle bearing the number '8'.

Soft, lighthearted music played somewhere above him in the elevator, but Joker could barely hear it over the sound of his teeth grinding together in the back of his mouth. It had been a very long time since he had been in this particular building, and thinking back to the last time he had ridden in this very same elevator, his heart gave a pang of ache when, somewhat instinctually, he turned his head to glance to his left, where ten years ago, Tre had been standing right beside him. Of course, the jokes had been flying about how 'ay, man, they betta' give you one of them plastic cone things to go 'round yo neck after you get fixed,' or 'hopefully now this means I can stop feeling that intense desire to piss on every fire hydrant I see.' A snort of a laugh escaped Joker when his mind took him back to the way Tre had laughed himself to tears over the self-described 'banana hammock' Joker had been forced to wear for the three days following his procedure. At the time, Joker had let him laugh, but all the while had been thinking delightedly about how he would never have to buy condoms again. That reminiscent smile slid slowly from Joker's face as he turned slowly to face the back of the elevator, as though he had felt someone watching him, only to find that one huge mirror covered the back wall. Vaguely, Joker felt a sense of surprise that the word 'Dad' had not written itself across his forehead in huge, bright red letters, although the place where Jayde had slapped him still ached angrily. He supposed that was sort of the same thing.

The very highest level of the building was surprisingly empty, save for one young woman behind a reception desk, just rising from her chair to lean over and pull out a purse from one of the drawers. She looked up with a smile as Joker approached, and he watched, feeling a very small stab of enjoyment as her grin faltered noticeably upon laying eyes on him; she recognized him, even without his characteristic greasepaint. Holding up one hand, she backed away from the desk.

"P-please, I have kids," she stammered, clear terror in her eyes. A shaking hand pointed at her purse on the desk between them as Joker stepped up close enough to rest his forearms on it. "There's my purse, take it! Just let me-"

At this, Joker finally stepped in, suddenly finding that the urgency of his situation was just a bit too dire for him to find much pleasure in terrifying this woman. He rolled his eyes with a heavy sigh of impatience.

"Take my purse, she says..._God, _that's insulting.."he grumbled under his breath, giving a shake of his head. "Look," he went on, holding up both empty gloved hands. "I'm unarmed, I'm not gonna hurt ya, and I'm most certainly not after the...maybe couple thousand dollars you have in your bank account-" he motioned to her purse with one of his raised hands. "No, I'm just here to have a little chat with Dr. Miller. He still here?"

It seemed the randomness and complete casualty in Joker's tone and mannerisms had rendered the woman completely speechless, and she blinked several seconds after he had finished speaking, as though she had only just realized he had asked her a question. With a jump, she nodded, pointing one finger down the hallway.

"Y-yes, he's staying late tonight to...finish some of his charts-" she stammered, watching the side of Joker's scarred face as a grin finally appeared there.

"Hmm...How _fortuitous..." _ he growled, rubbing his gloved hands together quickly. Turning back to the woman first, he nodded at her purse. "Tell ya what, tuts, how 'bout you get the hell outta here, hm?" he asked, arching one eyebrow when she nodded immediately, as though she would like nothing better than to do just that. "But first," Joker went on, holding out one hand. "in repayment to me for _not _killing you, I want you to _promise _that you wont call the cops, _okay?" _he asked in a tone that suggested he was speaking to a child, nodding his head very slowly as the woman across from him did the same, her eyes darting back and forth between his face and the elevator. "_Shake on it?" _

At first, from the expression on her face and her hesitation, it was as though he had asked her to jump off the building, but after a moment, she extended one trembling hand very slowly toward Joker's outstretched palm, and cringed upon making contact with him, at this point clearly willing to do whatever it took to get out of that building with her life. However, just as Joker's fingers tightened around the back of her hand, he suddenly pulled her hand closer with a rough yank, in turn pulling her entire upper body closer to him across the desk. His gaze darted back and forth between her eyes.

"Call the cops, and I _will _hunt you down, understand?" he asked, his voice now barely above a whisper, his dark eyes watching her closely as her face was now just inches from his own. The fear in her expression was practically audible but despite how terrified she looked, the woman simply nodded, and with that, Joker released her hand. "Alright, now beat it." he finally finished, nodding his head toward the elevator behind him.

With the woman now scurrying away as quickly as she could manage, Joker turned to begin walking down the hallway, to where he knew the man's luxurious corner office was. From the quietness of the floor, Joker figured that the rest of the doctors and staff had already gone home, which he figured was particularly advantageous; in the grand scope of things that had _not _gone his way that evening, he felt he'd take a win wherever he could get it, no matter how small it happened to be.

The eighth floor of his office building had been redone, updated since Joker had last been there. The walls of the individual offices were now fully glass, completely transparent, making it easy for him to locate his prey up ahead toward the end of the hall, where the row of unlit rooms was punctuated by a single desk lamp, illuminating a lushly furnished office. It seemed Joker had not yet lost his ability to sneak up on people as the man now visible inside the room did not look up when he stopped in front of the door, on which the words "Dr. James Miller, MD" had been sealed in frosted letters. For just a moment, Joker watched through the glass as the familiar man, now with a full head of gray hair, sat at his desk on the other side, typing on a keyboard in front of a flat screen computer monitor, clearly unaware that a predator stood a mere ten feet away. However, just as Joker began to wonder numbly if he was the only person on earth who possessed the ability to feel when he was being watched, the doctor's fingers abruptly stopped moving, just before his head slowly turned toward the glass door. He suddenly turned in his rolling chair and backed away from the desk, rising to his feet. Joker took his as his cue to let himself in.

"_Doctor _Miller," he began as he stepped into the room, his voice carelessly light and clowny. One finger wagged at the man across from him as he tilted his head to the side. "Boy, have _I_ got a bone to pick with you..." At this, Joker paused, frowning slightly as he assessed his last statement. "Probably the wrong use of words, given your specialty-" Dr. Miller did not seem to be listening very closely as his eyes were roughly the size and shape of saucers.

"Kieron...I-" he began, his voice surprisingly smooth for a man who was currently radiating such waves of anxiety, Joker could practically smell it. Ignoring this, Joker shrugged, squinting slightly as he walked over toward the desk, opposite the doctor.

"Well, that's _not _really what they call me anymore but it's encouraging that you remember me...Should save us a few moments of awkward niceties," Joker replied, dropping down casually into one of the plush chairs across the desk from Miller, who was now ogling him as though he found it hard to believe that the Joker had ever exchanged anything close to what he would call 'niceties'. Instead of commenting on this, the doctor slowly moved back toward his chair, keeping his round eyes focused on Kieron, clearly afraid to lose sight of him for more than a few seconds. Once seated however, he pulled himself up to the desk, taking a deep breath.

"Of course I remember you," he said quietly, his hazel eyes now raking across the Joker's face, taking in what the last ten years had done to him. The scars had not been there the last time Kieron had sat in this exact chair. James continued, shaking his head slowly. "You were the youngest patient I ever had. And I'd never had a patient pay me to keep their real name off of the files-...And of course, I saw you on the news from Gotham...saw what you had done and-..." Again, Dr. Miller paused, to inhale deeply. "I just always had a feeling I'd be seeing you again."

All of this, Joker had been only half-listening to, the other half of his brain focused now on how he was supposed to go about wording his questions to this man; a man he had not seen in a decade. It was clear from the vague sound of what Joker could swear was reverence in his voice that Dr. Miller viewed him as something of a legend, perhaps even a myth, a mere shadow of the young man he had met ten years ago, which made explaining his situation even more complicated. How was Joker to explain that he, one of the most feared criminals, terrorists, in the country, had met a girl, gone absolutely stark raving crazy for her, and was now wondering how he could have gotten her pregnant? In an effort to stave off the moment in which he would have to admit all this aloud to someone he barely knew, Joker went back to the last thing he had just said. Leaning forward slightly on his chair, he arched one eyebrow.

"What, pray tell, gave you the idea that I might be back here?" he asked, not only out of procrastination, but also pure curiosity; this seemed an odd thing for his once, former doctor to say. Across the desk from him, Dr. Miller shrugged.

"Well, I thought you'd want to update your surgery," he answered somewhat sheepishly. "You paid cash last time so-" James went on, but Joker was already interrupting, shaking his head like a dog trying to rid it's ears of water.

"Wait, what do you mean, _update?" _he asked, his voice raising slightly and losing that hint of clowniness. For just a moment, Kieron was sitting, once again, across from his doctor. "I thought that was a permanent decision...that once it was done, it was done, unless I chose to have it reversed?"

In the aged face across from him, Joker noticed just a hint of urgency register there, before Miller shook his head, his gray eyebrows furrowing.

"Kieron, a vasectomy is only an affective form of sterilization for five to seven years," he answered, glancing down at his desk to shift several piles of paper to the side, searching for something, though he never did manage to find it before the Joker had returned to his being. Suddenly, James Miller found himself being picked up out of his chair by the front of his shirt, clasped tightly in two large, rough hands. He gave a shout of mingled pain and fear when his back collided heavily with the massive floor-to-ceiling windows that lined the back wall of his corner office, and opening his eyes, he found the Joker's scarred, devilish face just inches from his own.

"Are you _telling _me that I've been able to have my own little _bastards_ for near on five years now?..." Joker asked, his voice growling through gritted teeth, his eyebrows raising as his black eyes bounced back and forth between Dr. Miller's fear laden gaze. What felt like a lead weight dropped into the pit of Joker's stomach as the doctor mouthed wordlessly at him, seemingly stunned into speechlessness. With a rough growl, Joker shook the man so that his back banged against the window ominously, threatening him with the eight stories he was currently lording over the pavement just on the other side of the glass. "Gotta answer, doc, or so help me, I'll throw you through this window." Gulping audibly, Dr. Miller nodded his head hastily.

"Y-yes, the body will-...will repair itself after ab-bout seven..seven years!" he gasped, shifting slightly as he attempted to balance on his toes from the way Joker had him raised to eye level against the window. That ball of lead in his stomach dropped another few inches and gained weight, but he did not allow this sensation to manifest itself in his eyes as he shook the doctor again.

"And _why, _pray tell, wasn't I told this ten years ago?" he asked, his voice adopting that clowny note as Dr. Miller's eyes grew wide. Joker knew that look; the doctor had found a glimmer of hope.

"I _did _tell you that!" he practically shouted in defense. "I tell all my patients that! It's explained in great detail in the packet of information I gave you before the procedure! Honestly, you have to believe me!"

Despite himself, Joker's grip slackened ever so slightly on the man's shirt, as the weight of what he had just been told, the second bit of devastating news in one day, came crashing down on him. To his immense surprise and horror, Joker felt his legs become light and his vision grew dim for just a moment in time, symptoms which he knew almost always accompanied a rapid and unexpected hug with the ground. But fighting hard against the fainting spell, he managed to take a deep breath in through his nose and fight it off, to focus on the man still clasped by the shirt in his hands. With a rough growl, Joker shoved him away from him, into the glass, where the doctor immediately crumpled to the floor, shaking and sweating stains in his light blue business shirt.

There was nothing else Joker could say, nothing else he could ask that would make any difference. Sure, he could kill this man, but what good would it do, really? It was _his, Kieron's, _fault. He had simply tossed that stack of paper away all those years ago, having only skimmed the contents for what little information he cared about. Now, the damage was done. Dr. James Miller had done nothing wrong, and although this was never normally a factor in Joker's decision to kill someone, he just could not feel at all justified in killing this man for what was ultimately _his _mistake. With an angry hiss through his teeth, Joker stepped away from the trembling man on the floor at his feet.

"Consider yourself at the height of _lucky _to be leaving with your life tonight, Dr. Miller," Joker said over his shoulder as he moved toward the door. However, just as he reached out for the handle, though he had not been expecting any sort of a reply whatsoever, he paused when the doctor's voice broke the heavy silence. Joker did not turn back to look at him, but instead used the opposite wall of glass to watch the reflection as James slowly got to his feet behind him.

"If you want your surgery updated, K-...Joker, I'll do it for you," he said, his voice slightly calmer but still quivering. "Free of charge, keep your name off any record or surgery roster."

With his back still to the desk and the doctor standing behind it, Joker took a very deep breath in through his nose, his eyes sliding shut as he reached out for the handle of the glass door.

"That's an awfully generous offer, doc, but-..." Here, Joker paused, finally glancing back over his shoulder as he pulled open the door to the office. "It's a little late for that now."

Leaving a stunned but likely relieved man standing in his luxurious office behind him, Joker ventured back down the hallway toward that same elevator, but bypassed it, instead moving past it to the stairs, where he threw open the door and began to descend. Every step downward, a new directive beat itself into the front of Joker's brain. _Your fault, your fault, your fault, your fault..._

Now, there was only one thing left for him to do.

.

.

.

.

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A/N: I sincerely hope you enjoyed this chapter as I know it was a bit heavier than the last. Things are not going at all well for Mister Joker, are they?! Haha Please leave me a review and let me know what you loved or hated about this chapter along with your prediction for the next and I will be SURE to get the next and final installment out to you as quickly as possible! So as I always say, LEAVE ME YOUR LOVE/HATE IF YOU WANT THE NEXT CHAPTER! -QoM


	3. Nightmare

The sound of the garage door sliding up on it's tracks had, at one time, been a source of excitement and happiness for Jayde. That noise, that one simple auditory sensation had brought her a sense of comfort, eagerness to see the man she loved, and almost always pulled her to a standing position, no matter where she was in the house, in preparation to launch herself into his arms, peppering kisses all over his scarred face, whether he wanted them or not. Over the course of just a few hours, however, this had changed dramatically. The sound of the garage door had just sent a sick feeling of dread into the pit of her stomach, laced with residual anger and resentment.

If she had not been so overwhelmingly exhausted, Jayde's eyes would have been wide and slightly panicked as she glanced over at Dotcom, who was seated across from her on the couch. But she could barely manage to keep her head in an upright position, much less force any semblance of fear onto her face. Just minutes earlier, she had expressed to Dotcom a vague desire to flee the house and go back to New York with him. When he had asked her why she felt the need to do that, when she and Joker had only argued, she had replied, 'Because I think he might kill me.'

Dotcom's lack of a verbal response had only deepened Jayde's notion that her fears may not be totally unfounded. But seeing how Joker knew exactly where Dotcom lived, had even been there before, it seemed the idea of hiding out there was just a bit too optimistic to seem sane.

But the longer Jayde and Dotcom sat there, perfectly still on the couch before a low volume television, listening to the noises beyond the house out in the garage, the more they noticed how long it seemed to be taking Joker to get out of the car and come inside. Vaguely, Jayde wondered if he was attempting to kill himself by means of carbon monoxide poisoning as she could now hear the garage door being put down while the low rumble of the Corvette's engine was still audible. Glancing over at Dotcom, she noticed that his eyebrows had furrowed above the top rim of his glasses as he stared over at the closed door leading from the kitchen to the garage.

A moment later, the sound of the engine died off, leaving nothing but a dense silence. Jayde felt that swarm of confused butterflies explode to life in the pit of her stomach, almost out of habit; mentally, she was not excited to see him, but it seemed her body had developed a slightly 'Pavlov's dogs' reaction to hearing the familiar jingling of keys, just on the other side of the door.

However, again, it seemed Joker was either stalling or having an extraordinarily difficult time getting into his own house, as Jayde and Dotcom could both hear several things happening at once. At first, a key seemed to make contact with the lock on the other side of the door as they could hear the knob attempt to move...which it did not. This sound was followed shortly by a quiet, muffled curse word as they heard the key being withdrawn from the lock. More jingling of the keys, followed again by the grinding sound of metal being inserted into the knob lock on the door, and again followed by a slightly louder curse.

A third time, the keys tinkled on the other side of the door as Joker seemed to try yet another key, though vaguely from inside the house, Jayde heard a soft clinking noise, of what she assumed had been caused by the sound of keys hitting a concrete floor. Despite her exhaustion, she jumped when Joker's voice barked loudly from the other side of the door.

"_Dammit!" _

Jayde wondered when Joker would realize that the door was already unlocked.

Moments later, the door swung open, and in stepped the tall, violently green-haired Joker, who swayed slightly on the other side of the round, carved table, squinting sourly at the inside of the kitchen as it seemed the lights were a bit too bright for his taste. From her place across the room on the couch, Jayde remained perfectly still, watching with mingled confusion and apprehension as Joker turned his head to the side, reaching out one hand to haphazardly drop his set of keys onto the very edge of the table. Trapped under a heavy hand as he moved to walk away, the keys slid from the elevated surface and fell to the hardwood floor with a resounding clank. Pausing, Joker gave another precarious wobble as he glanced down to where the keys now lay abandoned at his feet. A quiet snort of a laugh escaped him as he shrugged and once again moved to round the table toward the living room. As he moved further into the house, his tall figure coming into greater prominence, Jayde's blank gaze traveled down his side; one of his hands was loosely gripping a bottle of Jack Daniels by the neck. He gave a hearty hiccup as he came to a teetering halt, his bleary eyes finally coming to rest on Jayde and Dotcom's staring, uneasy gazes. His eyebrows furrowed as he lazily waved one hand at them.

"...'s what're _you _queers starin' at...?" he growled, his words just barely discernable through his raspy, slurred voice.

Though Joker was finding it increasingly difficult to force his eyes to focus on any one thing at the moment, he somehow managed to notice the way Jayde glanced quickly over at Dotcom, who was _still _staring at him with a heavy, furrowed brow. Shifting slightly on the couch, Dotcom sat up a bit straighter, clearing his throat as he nodded his head toward the bottle that until then, Joker did not realize he was still carrying.

"Um-..." he started hesitantly. "How drunk are you?"

At this, Joker let out a noise that sounded like air being released rapidly from a tire, and with another unsteady wobble, he shrugged, raising his left hand to hold the bottle up. One of his eyes closed while the other squinted, and with his other, empty hand, he used his thumb and pointer finger to reach out and measure the amount of empty space in the bottle, between the base of the neck and the line of amber liquid. To his partial surprise, this left about four inches of space between his two fingers. Shifting his gaze again to Dotcom, he held out his measured fingers demonstratively.

"_This _much," he answered, giving another deep hiccup. Across from him, Dotcom glanced quickly to Jayde, before he gave a very subtle roll of his eyes and moved to rise from the couch.

"I'll go get the trashcan," he grumbled quietly. "It's about to be barf-city in here."

From where Joker stood before the television, he waved a lazy hand, scrunching his face up in protest as he staggered toward the couch, leaning down slightly to drop the partially full bottle of whiskey onto the coffee table.

"No, no," he argued in a raspy voice, reaching out two hands to brace his fall as he dropped heavily onto the couch beside Jayde. "I'm fine, really. 'm fine..." he then finished, glancing to his right, to focus his eyes blearily on the side of her face. Vaguely, through the deep drunken haze floating about his brain, Joker managed to wonder if he had ever been _less _'fine' in his entire life. Thankfully, the liquor was helping to numb this overwhelmingly strong sense of confusion and dread, two emotions with which he was wholly unfamiliar. At the moment, he opted to pretend that nothing had happened, which he demonstrated by patting Jayde's leg sluggishly with one hand. "Miss' me, din'cha...?" he asked, grinning toothily at the side of her face while Jayde made quite a point of avoiding his gaze, instead, keeping her eyes trained on the TV across from her. A frown wrinkled the creases of Joker's forehead and the corners of his mouth struggled to turn downward against the upward trajectory of his scars.

"Hey..." he grumbled, turning slightly on the couch to face her more fully. "Hey, look a' me..."

Somewhere behind him, Joker heard Dotcom rise from his newly acquired place in the arm chair at the corner of the couch, but he refrained from looking back at him, merely listening as he announced, "I'm gonna go to bed. Jayde, come get me if you need me." At this, Joker turned his head to look over, but had clearly done so a bit too quickly as his vision swam sharply. Blinking hard, he fought through the wave of slight nausea and dizziness by scowling at Dotcom's retreating back. Why would Jayde need him? If she had any need for someone, wouldn't _Joker _be the person she sought? Pushing this thought away for the time being, Joker turned his attention back to Jayde, who, to his surprise, had finally turned her gaze to meet him, her eyes dull but glossy and still slightly red, as though she had spent a good portion of her night crying. Again ignoring this and despite knowing that his breath likely smelled like the inside of a dive bar, Joker leaned toward her, frowning as he reached out with one drunken hand to push some of her hair away from her face.

"Jaydie, tell me what your problem is," he asked as politely and gently as his foggy, sluggish brain would allow, though from the flicker of anger that flashed behind her blue eyes, it appeared as though his choice of words had not been his best on record. Normally, he would have tried again, attempting some different tact of asking her to talk to him, but he was awfully tired and his brain was barely staying functional as it was. Across from him, Jayde let out a slow sigh, reaching up one hand to very gently take his and remove it from the side of her neck. She shook her head gravely as she gazed up at his dull, brown eyes.

"If you really have to ask me what the problem is, then you don't deserve to be told," she finally answered, releasing his hand only once she had placed it back on his own lap. Even this drunk, Joker had to admit privately that it was rather impressive how gifted she was at sounding so sweet and kind while being so condescending. He had barely finished registering what Jayde had said when she suddenly pushed herself up from the couch, using her hands to pull down the bottom of her shirt and turning to look back down at him. "I'm going to bed," she said, still using that maddeningly quiet, gentle voice. "Are you coming?"

With a deep, groaning sigh, Joker glanced about himself at his surroundings, observing just then how heavy his legs and arms felt and how very far the bedroom was from his current location. He glanced back up at Jayde, cocking his head to the side. "We'll see if I can get there, yeah?" he answered, before holding both of his arms out above him like a stubborn toddler. "Can 'get a lil' help here?"

Regardless of how angry she still was, despite how badly she wished to slap him again, Jayde stared down at him, wondering if she had ever seen him look so painfully handsome, dangerous and yet boyishly adorable. Every part of her mind and body had been present in the kitchen just hours ago, listening to him accuse her of doing the one thing she had sworn to him she would never do, listening to his libelous questions about who she had been screwing behind his back, and those same parts of her were now screaming at her to walk away from him right then, leaving him sitting there on the couch to fend for himself...as it was nearly the same thing he had done to her for the past several days. There was something so symbolic, yet simple about that moment, right then, with him sitting there, both hands outstretched for help. Jayde longed to point this out to him. But he was indeed still the Joker; she had already cheated death once earlier by slapping him in the face then shoving him into the wall.

Reaching out both hands, she gripped his forearms and pulled, leaning back to use her body weight as a counter balance. Joker gave a deep groan as he slowly rose from the couch.

"Ah, ok, this i'n't so bad..." he mumbled lazily, finally reaching his full height and moving one arm to drape heavily around Jayde's shoulders, just as she did the same around his back. However, just as he took one step, she felt his left knee buckle. He gave another grunt as he began to slip sideways away from her. "Nope, never mind...Man down..."

At that, Jayde released her grip and let him fall, turning to watch as he narrowly missed the edge of the coffee table and landed almost face first on the fluffy deep purple area rug before the TV. A low, muffled groan escaped him as he lay on his stomach with the side of his face buried into the material of the rug and most of his messy green hair splayed across the visible side of his head. The one arm that was not currently trapped beneath his body lifted slowly, before it dropped back down heavily onto the floor beside him.

"Second thought...Imma jus' stay right here, 'kay?" he announced, the deepness and slur of his voice signaling to Jayde that he was rapidly losing consciousness. So with a roll of her eyes, she turned away, shaking her head as her mind showed her a quick flash-forward of the following morning, where she could very clearly envision a morning-sick version of herself and a hungover, murderously cranky Joker fighting for the bathroom. As she turned the corner toward the bedroom, she paused, hating herself for casting one last look into the living room where her supposed 'husband' lay face down on the floor. One last sigh escaped her as she gazed down at him. "Goodnight, Joker," she told him quietly, only to receive a deep, incoherent grunt in reply.

…...

Something was tickling Joker's nose. Something Joker didn't _want _to be tickling his nose was tickling his nose. Every exhale, every inhale, the thing would move against the most sensitive part of his face, causing a burning, itching sensation to travel up to his sinuses, until his closed eyes squinted hard, he took a deep breath and sneezed. Then his head exploded. Blinding, excruciating, white hot pain nearly cleaved his entire head into two clean halves, from the place where his eyes met, on back over his head to where his neck met his shoulders and across his forehead to his temples. Fighting against the howl of pain that threatened to escape him, Joker moved to bring both of his arms up, in an effort to push himself into a kneeling position, but found that only one of his hands would move. It appeared that the other had been trapped beneath his full body weight and was now numb, tingling painfully from a lack of circulation.

With an almighty groan and a huge effort, Joker managed to slowly roll himself onto his side, forcing his eyes open to focus on identifying his surroundings, as he could scarcely remember where he was, much less how he had gotten there. A very small part of him expected to find that he had passed out on some unknown surface, in some unfamiliar place, as he could not exactly recall his return to the house. But as his blurred vision managed to sharpen slightly, and a small expanse of fluffy purple material came into greater relief, stretched out before him beneath his extended hand, he let out a somewhat relieved sigh. He knew this rug...but how he had come to be there, versus tucked away in his bed, still remained something of a mystery.

His spine gave a sudden, painful pop as Joker used his one, functional hand to push himself further onto his back, where he lay completely still, taking one deep, slow breath after the other, struggling simultaneously to send enough oxygen to his brain to hopefully subdue his splitting headache, but also to quell the overwhelming nausea that was creeping up on him. And as he lay there, flexing his left hand's tingling fingers to bring feeling back to them, snippets of the previous night began to fire through his memory at a more rapid pace than he would have liked, though it seemed the order of events had been reversed.

_Jayde was sitting on the couch next to him, glaring off in the other direction. Joker was annoyed by this._

_ Dotcom was asking how much he had drank. Joker could remember thinking, 'not enough'. _

_ "P-please! I have kids!" a trembling, terrified voice was pleading with him, though Joker was not there to hurt her. _

_ Jayde had slapped him. _

_ "SO JUST WHO WAS THE LAST GUY YOU FUCKED IN MY BED, HUH?!"_

"_Joker...I'm pregnant."_

As this last memory went flying through Joker's mind, that nausea doubled it's grip on his insides and a loud, gagging cough escaped him as he suddenly sat up, fully prepared to vomit into his own lap. Though just as he did this, his glossy, itchy and burning eyes managed to catch sight of a single, male figure sitting on the couch just a few feet from him and he stopped mid-gag, the surprise of discovering that he was being watched having caught him off-guard. Slowly closing his mouth, Joker raised his eyes to the slightly blurred outline of Dotcom, sitting across from him with a very blank, almost bored expression on his face, as though he had been watching a particularly dull TV show. With a groan, he rolled his eyes, leaning forward to rub his face heavily with both hands. Dotcom took a nonchalant sip of coffee from the mug he held with both hands in his lap.

"Good morning," he said somewhat brightly, once he had brought the mug back down from his lips. Although it was on the very tip of Joker's tongue to ask him just why the fuck he had been sitting there staring at his unconscious form for who knew how long, he feigned deafness instead, keeping his face firmly planted behind the cool darkness his large hands provided. A moment later, his croaky, raspy voice broke his silence.

"What are you staring at..." he asked, sparing just a moment of lucidity to feel amazed that he was still feeling slightly drunk, even after sleeping for what appeared now to have been over six hours. Without even looking up, Joker could see Dotcom's expression in his mind's eye. He had likely just rolled his eyes and lifted one leg to cross over his other knee.

"You..." he answered simply a moment later. "Drunk...on the floor." There was a pause, where Joker finally brought his hands down from his face abruptly, dropping them heavily into his lap, to glare up at Dotcom, who went on quickly. "Did it work?" he asked, raising his eyebrows as he absentmindedly wiped a drop of coffee from the rim of his mug. Now glaring hard enough to burn holes through his former employee, Joker allowed a very small scowl on his face in confusion; frowning too hard made his head ache more severely.

"What the hell are you talking about..." he asked flatly, the inflexion in his voice barely indicating a question. Dotcom shrugged again.

"Getting drunk," he explained lightly, before continuing with another pair of questions. "Did it solve all your problems? Is everything back to normal?" At this, Joker looked up again, but before he could reply and ask just what Dotcom meant by this, he paused when the redhead across from him leaned forward suddenly. "Wait...Before you answer, listen..." he said quietly, holding up one finger.

The living room fell momentarily silent as they both listened for something that was not immediately obvious to Joker. But just a moment later, that silence was broken by the somewhat distant, echoing sound of sickness originating from the hallway leading to the bathroom and Joker's bedroom. Groaning, he leaned forward, once again burying his face into his hands as Dotcom shook his head with a soft tsk-ing noise of his tongue against the back of his teeth.

"Of course it didn't solve anything, Joker," he said quietly. "Jayde is still pregnant. And you're still the father, but now you have a splitting headache to deal with on top of that. And you know what? Compared to what Jayde is going through, I'd say you deserve it."

And with that, Dotcom stood up from the couch and walked away, leaving Joker sitting there alone on the floor, his head pounding, his stomach churning and that burning in the back of his throat telling him that he really ought to get up and make haste toward the bathroom or he'd have much more than just his _act _to clean up. Swallowing hard, he quickly pushed himself to his feet but staggered sideways as though his body was having a difficult time parting ways with the floor. Luckily the couch braced his fall and caught him before he fully hit the floor, but without wasting any more time, Joker attempted to walk again, this time succeeding and crossing as quickly as possible to the closed bathroom door.

Jayde let out a soft squeak of surprise from inside the bathroom as several surprisingly quiet knocks sounded from the other side of the door, causing her to look up from her place on the tile floor in front of the toilet. Her stomach was already completely empty as she had been up for nearly two hours by that point, being sick and whimpering pathetically to herself about being alone. Earlier, Dotcom had come by the bathroom to ask if he could sit in there with her, but she had said she was fine, that she didn't need anyone; this was a lie. She just didn't have the heart to tell him that it was not _his _company she wanted. Now, she figured he had simply come back to check on her. With a slight roll of her eyes, she lifted her head from where it had come to rest on the side of the tub.

"I really am fine, Dotcom, I'll be out in a minute," she said wearily to the back of the closed door, where she could just imagine him standing on the other side with one ear pressed to the wood. However, when no answer came at first, Jayde lifted her head again, this time frowning. Then, a raspy, wonderfully familiar voice came muffled through to her.

"It's Joker," he said simply. Jayde could not help the smile that jumped her face; she loved it when he said his own name. "Let me in."

Without hesitation, Jayde rose quickly from the floor, to walk over and open the door, where she had to immediately tilt her head back to look straight up at him. Though the moment she did, her vague smile faded rapidly from view; he looked like hell. Dark rings had formed themselves beneath his eyes overnight, his hair looked matted on one side from sleeping on the floor, and at the moment, was not the only thing that looked green. He swayed slightly as he stood there before her in the doorway to the bathroom.

"Ya done?" he asked rather impatiently, raising his eyebrows as he motioned with one lazy hand at the inside of the bathroom behind her. "'Cause I'm 'bout to puke and I'd rather do it in the toilet than all over you."

Crushing disappointment threatened to overcome Jayde as she nodded and shifted to the side, allowing him to move into the bathroom around her, but she fought it and instead turned back once he had passed her, opening her mouth to ask him if he wanted some water. But the door met the frame with a resounding snap behind him, the wood coming to rest just inches from the tip of her nose, only a moment before the deep sounds of retching reached her ears. With a sigh, Jayde turned away from the door, amazed that she even had the ability to feel disappointment anymore. For just a split second, she had tricked herself into thinking that Joker had come to wrap his arms around her.

As the steaming hot water rained down over Joker, matting his green hair against his head and upper shoulders, he sighed, tilting his face upward against the streams. He counted it as something of a miracle and yet slightly ominous that he had only managed to throw up once after his night of binge drinking...but then again, his stomach did feel empty and he _had _sort of vomited _really hard_. Though he had to admit, he could not be entirely sure that his recent bout of sickness had been entirely attributed to the alcohol. There was something about the thought of a miniature version of himself growing inside of Jayde that was truly nauseating to him.

True, the night before, upon leaving Dr. Miller's office, Joker had sat downstairs in the driver's seat of the Corvette, twirling his knife between his gloved fingers, watching it's movement as he contemplated his options. To his mild surprise, his first thought had been to go home and kill Jayde. He had no problem admitting that. But the longer he had sat there and thought in greater detail about how he would do it, how he would trick her into coming out into the garage, how her eyes would grow wide with fear when that knife made contact with her neck, the more he began to realize what killing Jayde truly meant. It meant losing Tre all over again. He could not go through that a second time, much less at his own hands. No, Jayde had to stay.

Then, he thought dreamily about killing _himself. _Sure, that would solve the problem of having to deal with such a huge upset to his life, having to claim sole responsibility for his predicament, but then where would that have left him? Sitting dead in the driver's seat of a gorgeous car, a car he had fought to get back from the police, with a huge gaping hole in his forehead with most of his brains splattered against the rear window. _They'd probably_ _throw a parade in Gotham..._he had thought with a grunt of a laugh. No, he could not kill himself. Besides, that would leave Jayde all alone and...could he really do that to her? She would have likely only found out about his death by hearing it on the news, seeing how no one knew where the Joker lived or hid out, or knew where to find his only surviving 'loved one' to inform her that he had been discovered dead by suicide. He could just hear her scream, could envision perfectly how she would likely crumble into a hysterical mess and perhaps even plot to kill _herself_. Joker thought it may have been a little egotistical to assume that she would not have any will to live if he were not with her anymore, but then again...hadn't she already told him that once before? Hadn't she said those exact words, 'I don't think I'd want to live without you'? Suicide was too easy and once again, he found that his decision against it hinged solely on Jayde. _Are we sensing a pattern here?_ He thought dimly, shaking his wet hair out of his eyes.

With his hair and body now clean and feeling leagues better than it had before his shower, Joker stepped out of the bedroom in a fresh set of clothing and his favorite purple high tops, wondering once again if he was finally at home alone. The living room was barren, but as he passed through it and rounded the corner toward the kitchen, his movement halted as he found Jayde and Dotcom seated closely together at the far side of the carved table. Both looked up as he appeared. A plain notebook sat in front of the male of the two, a pen rested lightly in his hand, while those two, life-altering pieces of paper from the previous night sat unfolded and smoothed out before Jayde. Whether he was being paranoid or not, Joker noticed that she had just moved her hands from where they were rested in her lap, to the table, atop those papers, as though to hide them from him. He ignored both the papers _and _the two humans for the time being and instead moved to the cabinets to retrieve a glass for water. Behind him, despite his attempts to tune them out, Joker heard Dotcom and Jayde resume their conversation.

"Well, let's say you _did _decide to go through with it..." he was saying in a very hushed voice. "We've started a list of things you'd need. Bottles...clothes...diapers...a carrier..."

Joker's teeth met together and began gnashing away in the back of his mouth. Had the word 'diapers' really just been uttered in his house? It took everything he had to not throw his partially full glass of water against the wall, just as he had the pregnancy test the night before.

"I could probably take some time away from work toward the end so I could be here for the...ya know...delivery..."

He had to get away from there. His stomach was already grumbling and growling with another wave of sickness. Jayde...giving birth...Joker getting up in the middle of the night to walk around the house with a tiny baby in his arms, trying to get it to go back to sleep...Joker...being called 'daddy'...He could not handle this. Suddenly, he turned, setting his glass down on the counter behind him.

"I have some stuff I gotta do today so..." he began, suddenly wishing he had not interrupted them, as they were both now staring at him. "I'm gonna go. I'll be back...ya know... later or whatever."

At the table, Dotcom glanced sideways at Jayde, who did not do the same but simply nodded at Joker, forcing a strained smile onto her face as he walked over to pick up his set of keys from the floor.

"Please be safe," she said lightly, watching him from behind weary but loving eyes as Joker stood up, unable to keep his face blank of the panic that was rapidly swelling inside of him. He nodded quickly, exhaling heavily as he made a beeline to the garage door.

"You betcha," he finally answered absentmindedly, and with that, he practically flung himself through the door and out into the asylum of the garage, where the talk of baby-things was at a minimum.

The confines of the Escalade had never felt so inviting and soothing, a welcome respite to what he had been facing at home. He knew, without a doubt, that if he had waited there at the kitchen counter long enough, Jayde and Dotcom would have somehow managed to rope him into that conversation and before he knew it, he would have been sitting there discussing the next seven months of his life, before he officially became a father. He would have been wrangled into agreeing to change Tre's room into a nursery, on which hospital they would use, how Jayde was supposed to be looked after if anything went wrong. And for the life of him, Joker was just not mentally nor physically able to have that conversation. Up until that point, he had not allowed himself to even speak the _word '_pregnant' aloud, much less discuss _names _for the damn thing. A loud groan slipped past his scarred lips as he stopped the SUV at a red light, and he leaned forward, resting his forehead heavily on the steering wheel before him. _God damn, _he hadn't even thought of that part...Names...picking out toys, carriers, car seats...

"Oh, holy shit," he said abruptly to his knees as though someone had just punched him in the back of the head. "I really am about to be a-..."

His lips would not even form the word. There was no way. He could not do this. Sitting up suddenly, he opened his eyes, blinking up through the windshield at the stop light before him. This intersection was familiar to him in so many ways. Just beyond the traffic light was a huge six-lane overpass, underneath which lay two options: left, led the driver east, toward New York, Massachusetts and the like, while to the right was a ramp leading west, back toward Gotham. Many years ago, he had taken that exact right turn, in a car much less comfortable than this, with every intention of traveling to Gotham and changing his life. And he had done exactly that, for the better...which he supposed 'better' was an objective, relative term. It was there, four years later, that he had met Jayde...Well, not really '_met', _but all the same, she had crossed his path.

Now, and Joker was astounded to admit it, he was in the same position as he had been all those years ago. At just shy of thirty years old, he was once again unhappy with his life, with the way things had turned out for him. His mistake had been so dire, so severe that he had, in essence, ruined his own life for both he _and _Jayde. And now, once again, he was faced with a literal splitting of the roads, a division in the paths which he could take to either accepting his fate and living with his mistake, or doing what he had done so long ago and changing his entire life _for the better. _

Perhaps...he could do it again. Maybe he should just take that right turn, head back to Gotham and pick up where he left off, though...on a more celibate course of action. Gotham had always been his home away from home as it were, where he could play with Batman, find out what happened to Jim Gordon...find out if he had ever rebuilt his house atop the ashes of the Joker's brother...He could so easily leave Jayde and the child behind. It would be all too simple to just make that right turn and escape, start his life over again, without a woman to weigh him down, hold him back and without a baby to drastically change the very fiber of his being. He could do it.

"No," he said aloud to the emptiness, shaking his head decisively as he brought his hands away from the steering wheel to fold his arms across his chest, as though the very car itself was tempting him. He could not leave Jayde. She loved him, she cared more about him than any other person ever had in his life, and it would kill her if he were to leave her behind. And besides, if Joker were being perfectly honest, he also loved her. He too cared more about Jayde than any other person in his life. She was _made_ for him, fit so perfectly into his life, even superficially into the curve of his body when he lay behind her in their bed.

And yet...Jayde was not really _just Jayde _anymore...She was now 'Jayde, plus one' and Joker did not think his already limited supply of love could stretch any further than just his woman by herself. He had never _planned _for a woman to be in his life permanently, much less a _baby _too! Which would be exactly why he had gone through a vasectomy...so he would never have to deal with-

A loud horn broke through Joker's conversation with himself, causing him to jump and glance around through the windows, to where cars on either side of the Escalade were now passing him through the green light and leaving him looking like that one idiot who makes everyone behind him sit through the next red light. But as Joker looked up, his eyes falling ahead to the splitting of the interstate ramps, his heart began to bang away at the inside of his chest. He could do it...

…...

"So let's just say..." Jayde began slowly, watching from her place at the table as Dotcom stood at the stove making dinner. "That I _did..._decide to...have the baby..." she paused here, unable to really grasp that those words had even come out of her mouth. She still could not adjust herself to the idea that she was pregnant. "I think Joker would probably have some place that he could take me to actually...you know...deliver. I just can't see him walking into some random hospital," She concluded, though admittedly, she couldn't see him being a father in the first place, much less going with her to the hospital to have the baby. Jayde was careful not to express this idea to Dotcom, but as he turned slowly to face her, it appeared as though he was sharing some of the same concerns.

"Actually..." he started. "I'm glad you said that...and I'm glad he's not here because I wanted to talk to you about him," Dotcom eventually finished, placing one of his hands on his cocked hip, while Jayde took a deep breath in through her nose and stared over at him. A long pause followed his last words, before he finally went on, tossing his hand. "Are you really sure he's ready for this, Jayde? I mean, look how he's been acting-"

At this, she interrupted, rising abruptly from the table to gather the pieces of paper and notebook from earlier that afternoon, purely in an effort to prevent him from continuing on to comment on how poorly he had been treating her over the past three days. "Of _course _he's not ready for this, Dotcom. _I'm _not ready for this either and yet it's happening!" she exclaimed, walking toward him to place the notebook and fateful papers in one of the top drawers of the kitchen counters. "And yeah, he hasn't exactly been here much since yesterday but think about it- I sprang this news on him out of nowhere. He thought that he wasn't able to have kids and so did I. But...some way or another, he got me pregnant and now I'm expecting his _child. _That news would be hard on anybody." She finally finished speaking and came to rest with her hip against the counter across from Dotcom, exhaling the last of her breath in a quiet sigh as he shook his head.

"Yeah, but...I'm just so afraid that I'll get a call from you in a few weeks or months, telling me that he up and left you," he rebutted, his features contorting into a rather panicked and fearful expression. "I just can't see-" he went on, but Jayde cut in, holding up one hand as a sickening ball of apprehension dropped down into her stomach. Defiantly, despite whatever private fear she felt, she shook her head.

"Don't say that," she told him quietly. "He wouldn't do that to me. I know he wouldn't." Here, she paused, but only long enough for Dotcom to open his mouth in preparation to protest and she went on hastily. "And I know what you're about to say. But he told us before he left that he was _just _going out to do a few things today and that he'd be back later. I'm not worried."

As her words trailed off, the kitchen grew silent, save for the sound of the skillet sizzling on the stove, and as Jayde watched his face, she noticed that Dotcom's formerly fearful expression had just morphed into one of confusion. His head cocked to the side, furthering this appearance.

"What do you mean? That's not what I was going to say," he said, his voice raising slightly as his brain seemed to comprehend what Jayde had said and how easily she had let slip her most private concerns. She felt her heart sink down to somewhere behind her bellybutton. "Wait, do you think he's not coming back?"

Despite what her subconscious had just forced her to say to the contrary, Jayde shook her head, rolling her eyes as she turned away and moved to leave the kitchen.

"No, I'm not worried," she lied, giving it every ounce of effort she had not to glance at the time on her phone for the fourth time since Joker had left over three hours earlier. "He said he just had some things to do today so I'm sure he's just...doing that or...whatever." It certainly sounded as though she were reassuring Dotcom, but if she really got down to the truth, she supposed her words were really more to comfort herself than her best friend. She was the one who stood to the lose the most if the Joker did not return. That sick, nervous feeling became slightly overwhelming as this thought passed through her mind, so with Dotcom still standing there staring at her uncertainly, Jayde forced a weary smile onto her face and nodded her head toward the distant hallway.

"I'm going to lay down for a bit, alright?" she told him. "Come wake me up when dinner is ready."

With that, she walked away, leaving a highly concerned Dotcom in the kitchen behind her, leaving her to trudge heavily toward the bedroom alone, wondering all the while when, or more importantly _if,_ the Joker was coming home.

…...

Nearly four hours had passed since Joker had made that right turn, and finally, his nerves seemed to have settled. At first, he had been jumpy, almost as though he had expected some alarm to go off in the Escalade, screaming at him to STOP! TURN AROUND RIGHT NOW AND GO BACK! But he was already past that turning point. He had long since passed the last of the exits off of the interstate that would take him back into Chicago, and had long since made up his mind. He was leaving; there was no going back.

Deep in the back of his brain, he knew that Jayde would likely never forgive him for this, if he were to ever see her again...not that he planned on letting that happen. Jayde was better off without him in this situation. He was not a nice person, not a good or even _decent _guy, and there was no way in _hell _he would make a good father. The idea of forcing Jayde to have a miscarriage had been entertained already but once again, he felt that she would never forgive him and would resent him for the rest of her life if he were to do that. Of course, there was also every chance that throwing her down a flight of stairs or sneaking harmful drugs into her drinks could not only end the fetus' life, but Jayde's as well. Joker didn't think he could live with that possibility. His decision to leave was entirely justified, and for Jayde's sake only...

Trees and empty fields slid past the huge SUV on either side of the interstate while Joker mentally ran through the Escalade's contents, checking off the things he already had and the things he would need to acquire. Fortunately, he had always kept a neat stack of one-hundred dollar bills beneath a stretch of carpet under one of the back seats, so he could at least stop and fill the tank with gasoline at some point, perhaps rent a nondescript motel room along the way to Gotham. He could also look into having another purple suit made for him, just so he could wear his usual greasepaint smile without feeling mismatc-

Just then, Joker let out a quiet groan as the back of his head met the seat behind him...His greasepaint...That familiar black bag containing his favorite makeup and brushes was currently sitting in the medicine cabinet in his bathroom, in the house he had left behind. Hell, now that he thought of it, _everything, _except the clothes he was currently wearing and a few of his favorite knives and guns,was in the house on the corner of Lincoln and Platt. Vaguely, Joker wondered whether Jayde would eventually throw his clothes and possessions away...perhaps burn them in the dead of the night like the body of someone she had killed. Joker grunted, scowling in surprise when a sudden throbbing ache coursed through his chest, forcing one of his hands from the steering wheel to his sternum, where he used two of his fingers to rub his skin deeply through his shirt. Still frowning, Joker glanced at just his two brown eyes in the rear view mirror. It had been quite a while since he had experienced that particular pain and part of him sincerely hoped he was about to have a heart attack versus what that sensation had signified last time.

…...

Jayde had not yet been to sleep.

There had been something...dare she say it, _exciting _about sitting there at the table with Dotcom earlier that day, writing out all the things she would need if she were to go through with the pregnancy. Picking out cute little clothes and tiny, mismatchable socks, choosing a pretty color for the bedroom and crib all seemed so exhilarating and yet horribly terrifying at the same time. She had never really given much thought to whether or not she would like to have children, but after meeting the Joker and deciding to set up her life with him, this choice had really been made for her. She was not _supposed _to be having a baby. And yet there she stood now, in front of the long body mirror on the back of Joker's bedroom door, staring at her belly's reflection. Despite her instinct not to tease herself, Jayde had lifted her t-shirt and was now staring at herself with her head cocked to the side, attempting to imagine what she would look like in another three months' time...assuming of course that she _did _decide to have the Joker's baby. Fleetingly, a scene from the old movie _Rosemary's Baby _flashed into her mind's eye, and a short snort of laughter escaped her. _Please, Jayde..._she thought, rolling her eyes at herself. _This is Joker's baby...not Satan's...right?_

Against the effort she had been putting toward not doing it, she could not stop herself from pressing both palms to her momentarily flat tummy and turning sideways to the mirror, turning her head to look over at her new position. She just could not picture herself with a giant, pregnant belly and another quiet giggle left her lips as she allowed her mind to imagine the sort of rude nicknames Joker would come up with once she began to show. A moment later, that giggle had left her face with a silly, girly smile as she struggled to picture Joker's reaction to being allowed to hold his son or daughter for the first time. That grin doubled when she imagined the way his nose would likely wrinkle in an expression that would mimic disgust, but she just _knew, _without a doubt, that if she were to go through with the pregnancy, despite whatever hesitation and anxiety he had felt early on, he would eventually grow to feel excited about the prospect of having his own offspring...though she knew he would never admit that aloud.

Jayde jumped when a gentle knock came through the door just a foot in front of her and Dotcom's voice broke the silence just a moment later. She hurriedly pulled her shirt back down.

"Jayde, honey?" he called quietly through the door. "If you're awake, dinner's ready."

"Yeah, I'm awake," she answered, reaching out toward the knob, to turn it and pull, revealing Dotcom in the way. His eyes scanned her face as though examining her for any sign of previous, hidden tears, though she had none to hide. Instead, she smiled, nodding at him as she turned off the light, leaving the bedroom behind her completely dark, as the sun had gone down nearly a half hour earlier. "C'mon, let's go, I'm starving."

…...

The trees and fields that Joker had been ignoring earlier were now no longer visible, as the sun had already long since disappeared beyond the horizon. The world beyond the Escalade was now dark and seemingly lifeless, which left Joker feeling very much alone and rather itchy from the silence. The only light around him originated from the in-dash touch screen, which had been automatically dimmed to a lower level once the sun had gone down and which was of no interest to him; he had already abandoned his attempt to drown his thoughts with music.

That ache, that resounding pain in his chest had done nothing but intensified over the past hour, making it not only difficult to ignore, but also impossible to dismiss as nothing more than a side effect from his recent hangover. He knew exactly what this pain was from, but he fought it, knowing it was only normal for him to feel some strange form of remorse over leaving Jayde and his unborn child behind. But he also knew that while this pain was rather impossible to ignore right now, it would grow easier to cope with over time. Joker was even prepared to wager a bet with himself that come morning, once he had driven all night and reached the outer limits of Gotham, he might not even remember what he had abandoned. Besides, just as he had reminded himself countless times since making that right turn onto the interstate, he had made this decision not for himself, but for Jayde and her baby. He knew that both of them would be better off without a monster in their lives. They would be safe without him- something he could never have promised if he had stayed. He would gladly play the martyr if that meant that Jayde would be safer and happier without him in the long run...despite how badly his heart was hurting him at the moment.

_Martyr?...or coward..._

_ Martyr, _Joker argued with himself. _I'm leaving so she has a better shot at being a decent parent. She doesn't need me around, risking her safety at every turn, because she knows I wont change my life for some accidental kid._ What Jayde needed was a normal guy, with a normal life, a normal job, someone who deserved her, who would love and provide for her and her child. Someone who-

_'State line- 1 mile'_

Joker's eyes slid over the passenger window as this sign passed on the right of the SUV.

His chest gave another sharp pang of ache.

He was leaving, saving Jayde from what was likely a life full of nothing but pain and fear, regardless of how much it hurt him to do it, regardless of how badly he wanted to just crawl back into his own bed, in his own house, and wrap his arms around her.

_Since when have you not deserved something? Since when has Jayde ever needed someone that wasn't you? Since when have you cared enough about someone to sacrifice yourself? _

Joker thought Joker had made a valid point on that and he frowned, once again absentmindedly bringing his right hand up to his chest to massage his sternum deeply.

No, he wasn't playing the martyr, he realized. He was not abandoning the one person he truly cared about because he wanted what was best for her. He was _running away, _fleeing like a whipped dog, to avoid confronting his fate head on.

The idea of a baby terrified him, he could openly admit it now. The Joker, The Clown Prince of Crime, beaten into submission and forced to run by something that was likely still smaller than his pinky finger, something that, at that point, he could not even hold in his hands or see with his own eyes.

"Coward," Joker said aloud to himself from between gritted teeth, his knuckles now practically glowing white against the tan material of the steering wheel. "_Fucking coward." _

And with that, the tires of the Escalade squealed and protested as Joker's foot slammed down on the brake, billowing clouds of burnt, acrid rubber into the street before him. Several off-tune car horns blared at him as he sat at a complete stop in the middle of the interstate, breathing heavily as though he had just run a marathon, his eyes wide and burning as he watched the residual clouds from his abrupt stop drift away into nothingness, clearing away and leaving Joker's gaze to jump quickly over to a sign on the right of the road, that until then, he had not noticed.

"_You are now leaving Illinois!"_

Another car passed on his left, it's horn blaring noisily. Joker blinked at the sign.

"No I'm not."

…...

Dotcom looked up from his place at the workbench in the garage as two bright headlights bounced into the driveway of the house on the corner of Lincoln and Platt. He stood up, hastily putting out his cigarette as he watched the massive Escalade pull into the garage, coming to a stop just a few feet from him, the Joker visible in the driver's seat just beyond the windshield. A strange look was upon his boss' face, one he had not yet seen there before, and if he were not much mistaken, it was one of fear; this would explain why he had never seen it before. Placing his hands on his hips, he waited, watching as Joker climbed out of the SUV, locking it behind him as he moved determinedly toward the door leading into the house.

"I know what you did."

Joker stopped dead in his tracks as Dotcom's voice broke the silence of the garage like the crack of a whip and he looked over, feeling that lead weight in the pit of his stomach drop to somewhere around his ankles. He had been so hoping to just walk past without any confrontation. His former employee was glaring at him, watching as he turned to face him. Joker sighed, hanging his head.

"Look..." he began, tossing both of his hands, but again, Dotcom spoke, interrupting him.

"I know you tried to leave her today," the redhead clarified, his eyes flashing dangerously behind his glasses. "How dare you even think of leaving that girl, Joker. Do you have any idea what she's been going through since she got the news yesterday? Do you know how hard she cried on the way home from the doctor's office? Any idea how _scared _she is? Do you have _any idea-"_

All this time, through all his words, Dotcom's voice had been raising ominously, making Joker feel more and more on edge until he finally snapped and held up both hands, his eyes wide.

"Yeah!" he exclaimed. "I _do _know because I'm just as scared, alright?! Is that what you want to hear? That I'm so fucking scared, I tried to run away?" He asked, taking a step closer to Dotcom. He paused, his dark gaze bouncing back and forth between the lenses of his glasses. "You wanna know how far I got?" Joker suddenly asked, raising his eyebrows as he tilted his head to the side. Dotcom shook his head, taking a careful half-step back, as he could clearly see that Joker was bristling.

"Boss, I-..."

"I didn't even make it past the state line," he cut in. "I couldn't even make it two hundred miles away from her without feeling like I was gonna have a heart attack, without realizing what a fucking coward I'm being. So if you want to call me an asshole for being a total _bitch, _then go right ahead. I'm all ears."

Whatever angry, chastising expression that had been lingering on Dotcom's face faded slowly away into something that very nearly mimicked sympathy as he watched Joker swear again loudly, bringing up one flustered, confused hand to the front of his messy green hair. Sighing, Dotcom shook his head.

"Joker, all Jayde wants to hear is that you understand how scared she is," he explained quietly, his voice now finally level and calm once again. "She knows how unexpected and...well, scary this is for you. Don't you think she understands that?" At this, Joker tossed his arms, turning away from Dotcom slightly.

"_No," _he stated. "I think she expects me to be all happy sunshine and rainbows about it..go pick out all this stupid shit and-" Again, Dotcom cut in when he sensed Joker about to lose his very small semblance of composure.

"Listen to me..." he began placidly. "Jayde hasn't even decided whether she's going to keep the baby or not. She was actually waiting on you to...get a grip before she talked to you about it." Joker stopped dead, his eyes widening slightly as he focused on what Dotcom had just told him, but of course, he was continuing, skating past the very obvious look of hope that had just appeared on his face. "All she wants to hear is that you'll support her and be here for her, no matter what she ends up deciding." Again, he paused, exhaling through his nose as he slowly shook his head. "It's your baby too, Joker...She wants you to have a say in what happens. So _please_, for the love of god, stop being such a drama queen and go talk to her?"

Although it was Joker's first, immediate response to warn Dotcom never to call him a drama queen again, he ignored this comment and instead stepped inside the house, before closing the door behind him and taking a deep, calming breath. His head instinctively turned to the side where his eyes fell onto the memorable, carved wooden table beside him; how could he have ever wanted to leave this place?

Seeing how the kitchen and living room were both empty, it became immediately obvious to Joker, upon checking the time to find it nearing midnight, that Jayde had likely already gone to bed and was probably laying there in the dark, wondering, hoping, praying that he would be coming home. His stomach gave an uneasy clench as he imagined her reaction to seeing him. She could either be thrilled to death to see him, or like Dotcom, have realized that he did not intend to return, and be beyond angry. He supposed there was only one way to find out.

Rounding the corner into the hallway, Joker found himself face to face with his closed bedroom door, underneath which he could just barely make out a small strip of faint blue light, where Jayde had likely turned on the television. His stomach was now in full blown knots, making him feel uncomfortably close to being sick, but again, he fought past this by taking a deep breath, and he reached out for the knob, turning it slowly.

Just as he had predicted, the inside of his bedroom was completely dark, save for the off-rhythm flickering of the muted television, the light from which illuminated the bed, where Joker could now make out the still, peaceful form of Jayde. He sighed, shaking his head as he took a step closer and finally noticed the way she was laying; half on her side, half sprawled on her back, with both of her hands rested delicately over the lower half of her stomach, almost as though she had fallen asleep attempting to feel her three month old fetus growing inside of her. Joker hated himself for finding this the slightest bit cute.

As quietly and gently as he could, Joker moved toward the bed, using every ounce of stealth that he could to pull himself up onto the mattress, onto his hands and knees to crawl up to where Jayde lay. He watched her face the entire time, watching for any sign that she might be waking up, but to his surprise, her countenance remained peaceful and still, seemingly unaware that he was now sitting down with his legs crossed just beside her.

Strong arms reached out toward her, one fitting behind her neck, the other sliding beneath her knees, and he pulled while lifting at the same time, gently moving her closer to him until she slid comfortably into his lap, cradled against his chest. He heard her inhale deeply through her nose against his shirt, and her hand moved from where it had fallen from her tummy to the place where his heart was once again banging away at his ribcage. A moment later, she exhaled with a quiet hum, having seemingly identified his scent as one that was familiar and comforting. Her fingers tightened slightly around a small bunch of material from his shirt.

"Joker..." she murmured sleepily, but he interrupted, reaching down with his one free hand to cup the side of her face and tilt it upward, so he could press his lips against hers, kissing her gently in an effort to help pull his next words out of him with more ease. Despite having just been asleep, Jayde responded instantly, her grip on his shirt tightening as she allowed her lips to gently and innocently move against his. Joker knew he felt familiar to her, knew she loved the deep gash on his bottom lip that traveled down to his chin, but vaguely he wondered if she realized how much he adored the feel of her mouth on his as well. He hoped she knew how good and comforting her plush, perfectly formed lips felt against him, how her smooth cheeks brushed his jagged scars and sent shivers down his spine. But now was not the moment to ask her if she knew all this. Pulling away slowly, Joker kept his eyes closed at first, licking his lips in nervousness. However, before he could speak, Jayde beat him to it.

"Joker, I never meant to make you upse-"

"I tried to leave you today."

A dense, heavy silence filled the bedroom as these words left Joker, and as he slowly and cautiously opened his eyes, he felt his stomach sink when he found Jayde's face close to his, her eyes open and big fat tears welling up along her bottom lids. He forced himself not to look away but instead kept his gaze firmly on hers. As was usual when she was trying hard not to cry, Jayde's bottom lip was quivering, but when she spoke, her voice was quiet though almost unnervingly level.

"Why?" she asked simply. Joker sighed heavily, looking down at Jayde's lap so that his forehead came to rest softly against hers. He felt her hand reach up to lightly trace his jawline.

"Because..." he started, once again closing his eyes. "I...wasn't ready for all this. I couldn't accept that it was really happening and...I guess I thought I was saving you from something." Here, Joker paused, unsure how to go about wording this to her. "But then I realized that I was just running away, that I was..._"_

_ Finally, _Jayde interrupted him, using her hand at his jaw to very gently tilt his head up, but she remained silent at first, waiting for him to open his eyes before she spoke. Joker realized that she was doing this so he reluctantly obeyed, raising his gaze to meet hers, only to find that a very soft, characteristically sweet smile had appeared on her face and her tears had vanished. Her thumb brushed against his right scar unabashedly.

"Joker, I'm scared too," she told him baldly. "Neither of us expected this to happen, but it did and now we have to deal with it. I just need to know that...you'll be alright with whatever decision I make. I can't do this without you."

At these words, Joker lifted his head, his gaze bouncing back and forth between her eyes and slowly, he nodded a moment later, reaching down to thread his fingers between hers over her lap.

"I'll be here," he finally told her. "I'm not going anywhere. But-...I mean..." he hesitated for just a moment, wondering how he could most easily and delicately word this so as to keep her from being offended. "Let's say...you _did _decide that you didn't want to do this..." Jayde's eyes flashed, but not in anger. "I could get you a doctor, at a safe clinic. You'd be well cared-for and-..." Just then, Jayde looked away from him eyes, her gaze falling to the line of his shirt against the base of his neck; Joker felt that weight sink further into his body. A moment later, she looked back up at him.

"And...what if I decided that...I wanted to do it? That I wanted to keep it?" she asked rather sheepishly, her eyes intense and rapt with apprehension as she watched the expression on Joker's face very closely, and for a long moment, he stared back at her. This was exactly what he had been hoping against. And yet Jayde was still there, waiting for an answer from him. A long, heavy sigh passed through Joker's nose as he brought one hand back to her face, to lightly grip her chin with his thumb and forefinger.

"If that's what you wanna do, kiddo, then I'll be right behind ya," he finally answered, and just a moment later, a massive grin split Jayde's face as she suddenly flung her arms around his shoulders and hugged his neck tightly. Joker rolled his eyes from the top of her head as she let out a quiet sniffle against his shirt, just before she spoke one last time.

"You're going to make a great daddy..."

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The Joker woke with a loud gasp and a sharp start, his shoulders and chest lurching up off the couch with such force, he nearly flung himself onto the hardwood floor below him. His green hair was stuck to the sides of his neck and jaw, damp and stringy, as sweat beaded along his skin, his heart racing and pounding almost painfully hard inside his chest. With unfocused, blurry eyes, he lifted his head groggily, glancing at his surroundings until, with a relieved sigh, he recognized that he was still at home, laying on his back along the couch, lounging in the last bit of afternoon sunlight like a lazy, particularly aggressive cat. Lowering himself back down onto the couch, Joker took another deep breath, bringing one hand to the front of his shirt to grip the material between his thumb and forefinger and begin fanning himself, attempting to cool off from the confusing bout of cold sweat in which he had just woken. His mind then began to piece together the nightmare he had just been having.

"Hey!"

Joker gave another start as Jayde's voice suddenly came out of nowhere. Opening his eyes, he turned his head toward the sound, dropping his sticky shirt back onto his chest as his eyes found his woman, standing over by the kitchen, a perfectly sweet smile on her face. She continued once she saw that he was listening.

"I'm glad you're awake!" she exclaimed happily, placing one of her hands on her curvy hips. "Dotcom will be here in about an hour and I wanted you to go get Tre's room cleaned up."

With a groan, Joker pushed himself into a sitting position on the couch, glancing down at his chest, only to find that he had literally sweat stains into the blue material. Without hesitation, he peeled the damp shirt off and used it to continue fanning himself.

"Jayde, when was the last time you threw up?" he asked bluntly, finally raising his head and looking over, only to find that her face had gone from bubbling with excitement to confused in the most radical way possible. She frowned slightly, clearly thinking that this was not a very appropriate response to what she had just asked him to do. Her shoulders shrugged heavily.

"Um, I don't know...About three years ago, I guess? Why?" she asked, once again displaying her knack for being obnoxious with her desire to know every reason for every little thing Joker asked her. He had long since learned to not be annoyed by this. With another groan, he stood up from the couch, draping his previously discarded shirt over his shoulder.

"Nothing," he answered, heaving a highly relieved sigh as he walked toward her. However, as he grew closer, Jayde stepped to the side, into his path, holding out both of her hands to stop him before he could pass her, and she stared up at his face, frowning.

"Joker, what's wrong? You look really white and...are you okay?" she asked, her voice playing at just a hint of urgency. Joker smiled the most genuine smile he had ever let onto his face in his entire life, just as he leaned down and kissed her gently on the lips.

"I'm fine, Jaydie..." he murmured once he had pulled away. "Just had a really, _really _bad dream..."

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A/N: Yes! It WAS just a NIGHTMARE! Oh, I love you folks but did you honestly think I could really do that to poor Joker and Jayde? Anyways, I wanted to announce that I will be starting a brand, spanking new Joker/OC fic, titled The First Responder and I sincerely hope that you'll all give it a read once I get the first chapter up! I also hope that you enjoyed this one-shot as it will be the last from Jayde and Joker for quite a while. = [ Thank you so much for reading, and for heaven sake, PLEASE leave me a review! Just be careful not to spoil the surprise for anyone who reads the reviews before they finish the story. = ] I love ya'z! -QoM


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